The Wonder Amy Paradox
by April in Paris
Summary: One night, the brazen Wonder Amy appears in Sheldon's apartment. The next day, his path crosses with that of the elusive Dr. Fowler. As he finds himself increasingly conflicted about Wonder Amy's visits and increasingly intrigued by Dr. Fowler's mysterious nature, Sheldon discovers a secret that threatens his relationship with both women. AU
1. Chapter 1

**One night, the brazen Wonder Amy appears in Sheldon's apartment. The next day, his path crosses with that of the elusive Dr. Fowler. As he finds himself increasingly conflicted about Wonder Amy's visits and increasingly intrigued by Dr. Fowler's mysterious nature, Sheldon discovers a secret that threatens his relationship with both women.**

 **Technically, this is a sequel to _The Wonder Amy Intervention_. However, I truly believe it can be understood and enjoyed on its own. Without further ado . . .**

* * *

 **THE WONDER AMY PARADOX**

 **Chapter One**

* * *

 _"Oh, and Sheldon . . ."_

Sitting up in bed, Sheldon watched the video on his new laptop again. It was grainy and taken from a distance, and he detested how stupid he looked, staring after her like that. He had been informed that it did not violate any policies and thus wouldn't be removed. But it was practically pornography! Even with the poor quality, he could clearly make out the swing of her hips, the rustle of her skirt, even the dampness of their lips after the kiss . . .

The only silver lining was the angle from which it was shot. That daring wink, that flash of emerald eye, that clever smile . . . that Wonder Amy was his alone.

Smiling, Sheldon closed his browser and was just starting to turn to set the laptop on his nightstand when he yelped and almost dropped it.

"Hello, Sheldon."

She stood in the doorway like a dream and yet just the way she was that afternoon in the park. The full locks of sable curls, the tiara, the breastplate, those tall boots, her commending hands upon her hips, the lasso hanging from her waist. He had no idea how long she'd been there; it could have been mere seconds or she could have been watching him for hours.

"Wonder Amy!" He jerked. "Where did you come from?"

She smiled, that irreverent smile, and said, "I have an invisible jet."

It explained almost nothing and yet Sheldon knew it was all he would learn. Wonder Amy stepped forward, confident and strong, until she was standing over him, just to the side of his bed. "I came to see you."

Bending down, she ran her hand through his hair, angling his head back and then pressing her lips to him. Oh! those lips! He waited, breathless and eager, for her to open her mouth, to feel the dart of her tongue again, to -

She pulled back instead. "Sheldon Cooper, I want you."

"You want me to what?" he asked, tilting his head slightly.

Her lips pressed close to his ear this time and she purred, her breath hot and sharp, "I want to possess you in the carnal fashion." Her teeth skimmed and nipped at his earlobe, and Sheldon's whole body quaked.

"And," she stood sharply, reaching for his laptop and pulling it away from him, "I know that you want me, too. It's just as plain on your face now as it was in this video."

"You - you've seen it?" he croaked.

Instead of answering him, she set the laptop on the end table and swung her leg over him in one swift action, straddling him and pinning him in place before he could protest. Her face was mere inches from his.

"Shoes aren't allowed on the bed," he objected weakly.

"So punish me."

"You know, it's suddenly very warm in here and -"

She silenced him with a kiss, and this time her mouth lingered as her tongue demanded entry and flashed across his. He moaned at the eagerness of her approach.

"W-what did you have in mind?" he stammered out when she broke their kiss.

"I like this position," she declared, and a declaration it was.

"O-okay." Sheldon had never imagined himself this position, both literally and figuratively, and especially not with Wonder Amy. Even more shocking, though, was how desperately he wanted it, how desperately his body wanted hers.

A grin of triumph melted into something serious. "Sheldon," she said, and it took a second for him to realize she was whispering now, her voice slower and more gentle, "I only want you with your consent. I will gladly leave you if you prefer."

Sheldon studied her solemn and inquisitive green eyes framed by her glasses, the first sign of sensitivity he'd ever seen from her. His hand quaked a little as he reached up and touched the edge of her chin, the point of her heart-shaped face, with the pad of his thumb. Wonder Amy closed her eyes briefly before reopening them. This moment, he felt, was a chink in her armor, and she was showing it only of her own free will.

"You have my consent if I have yours," he replied with equal softness.

A nod and then she leaned forward to seal their agreement with a quick peck on his lips. Just as easily as she'd swung over him, she was back to the side of the bed again.

"What are you doing?" he asked, surprised by her withdrawal.

"Remove the blankets. They will only be an impediment." The chink was closed, and Wonder Amy was back to commanding the situation.

Never one to disobey a command, Sheldon leaned forward, pulling down the blankets, using his feet to kick them completely out of the way. "You want me to stay upright, like this?" he asked.

"Yes. But use another pillow. I prefer a seventy degree angle."

He quickly complied, the geometric specificity of her request only heightening his desire.

Looking back at her, he saw one arm stretched across her abdomen to hold her breastplate still while her other hand reached for the waist. Sheldon heard a faint metallic click, and the armament swung free in her arms. Wonder Amy lowered it to the floor, her eyes watching him watch her.

Sheldon took a deep breath. Her breasts were round and firm, riding high upon her chest. Despite her undeniable strength, her stomach did not reveal chiseled abdominals; rather it was slightly convex, the skin smooth and creamy, her navel a small divot just above the waistband of her skirt.

"Your turn," she said.

"Oh, yes!" Sheldon rapidly unbuttoned his plaid pajama top and pulled the white tee shirt underneath off over his head. Avoiding her gaze, he folded them carefully and sat them on top of his laptop next to the bed.

As he angled back, there was an appreciative sound from Wonder Amy's throat and Sheldon felt his chest puff up a bit in pride. She wasn't the only one with muscles to show off.

Wonder Amy's thumb slipped beneath the band of her skirt, and Sheldon licked his lips with anticipation.

"Oh," she suddenly stopped, "I remember. In the park, you preferred this." She pivoted so quickly it was almost like a twirl, so that her back was now facing him. Her hair cascaded down until it met the row of bumps from her spine.

In an equally rapid motion, her skirt dropped to the floor around her boots, and Sheldon sucked in his breath at the sight of her bottom, also round and firm, each cheek hugged by royal blue panties with small white stars that perfectly matched her skirt.

Thumbs hooking into the waistband over either broad hip, Wonder Amy started tugging her panties down. This time, however, it was slow and almost painful to watch, her bottom revealing itself inch-by-stimulating-inch. When the underpants encircled her thighs, the edge of her reach, she leaned forward to continue the tantalizing drop, all the way to her ankles, each degree that she bent over bringing ever more of her secrets to light.

Sheldon's hand gripped the sheet next to him so tightly his knuckles were white by the time she righted herself and flicked both her skirt and her panties away with one kick of her toe.

Then Wonder Amy placed a hand on her hip and looked back over her shoulder and gave him a wink, an exact duplicate of the one already seared in his memory. If Sheldon hadn't been fully aroused before, that certainly did it.

As she was not a woman to waste time or motion, it only took one sure step for her to return to bed, naked but for her boots, tiara, and bracelets. Straddling him again, she held herself upright over Sheldon's lap, and he could feel the heat of her even through his pajama bottoms. The lasso was in her hand, although she had been so fast that Sheldon didn't see her pick it up. She raised it, and, again with her impish smile, she raked it along his bicep. It was smooth, not coarse, and it was warm upon his skin, sending a tingle down his arm.

Leaving the golden coil resting there, Wonder Amy asked, "Do you like my lasso, Sheldon?"

The words came tumbling out before he could consider them, his brain useless against its power to pull the truth out of him. "I find it intriguing, but I don't know if I like it yet."

She ran her free hand down his other arm, her touch just as provocative as the lasso was, until she reached his wrist. In a flash, she lifted both his arms above his head, wrapping the lasso around his wrists. It was not tight and she did not tie a knot, rather holding him still with her strong arms. The action had pressed her closer to him, and her nipples grazed against his chest.

"Shall we find out if you like it?" she asked.

"Yeeessss." It came out as a whimper, and he squeezed his eyes shut as the heat of the lasso intensified on his skin. He was unable to deny his desire to find out how the lasso would feel for a longer stretch of time, but he was unaccustomed to giving anyone this amount of control over him.

Instead of tying the lasso, he felt his arms being released, a rush of cold air where the heat of the braided cord had been. Wonder Amy still held his wrists there, but her even her touch had slacked. He opened his eyes to find her looking at him in that way she had before, the mischievous countenance replaced by something different.

"I won't force you," she whispered.

"But you know I want to find out," he protested softly. "I couldn't lie to you when it was touching me."

"It's not that I want to make you incapable of lying. It's that I want you to be unwilling to lie to me." Wonder Amy lowered her eyes, her long dark lashes almost brushing the back side of her glasses.

Sheldon tilted his head slightly. Although her verbiage had been exact, he was not quite sure of her full meaning. "I don't want to lie to you," he replied. "I'm intrigued and curious about the lasso. But I'm frightened of being powerless to so much extra stimulation."

Those emerald eyes rose back up, and her lips played with a smile. "But you like being powerless to my stimulation?"

"Very much so." He was certain she could feel it, hovering just above him, that she already knew exactly how powerless he was to her. And how much he liked it.

A full grin returned. "Good. There is nothing to fear from either of us. I promise."

Reality and practically poked at Sheldon's brain. "Wait! Do we need protection? If I need to go get some -"

"I am prepared."

Of course she was, Sheldon realized. Wonder Amy did not seem like someone who would formulate a plan lacking in essentials.

She said no more about it as she tied his wrists to the headboard above him. Then she slid down his lap, causing him to moan at the weight of her, and further down his legs, bringing his pants and underwear with her. Effortlessly, she had divested him of his last ounce of modesty and she threw it aside so that it landed in a heap on the floor. Her eyes travelled slowly up his body before she followed, walking like a cat back over him, her back arching and her tiara glinting.

She pressed close to him this time, her lips smacking into his, her full breasts squeezing against his chest. Once again, they were enveloped by her hair around them, her mouth seeking his with impatience and he responded with equal enthusiasm. Still she did not rest her full weight upon him, but the angle was such that Sheldon could feel the center of her glancing him with certain movements, just a whisper of a touch and then it was gone. It was not exactly the same as the kiss in the park, being even more demanding. However, Sheldon thought he could still taste the contradictions on the edges, something tender and defenseless.

Raising up, using her strong thighs to squeeze his hips and support her, she brought her chest to his mouth, leaving no choice, and no other desire, than to capture her breast between his lips, running his tongue in circles around her nipple, pulling gently. Moving his head, he did the same to the other.

"Oh, Sheldon," Wonder Amy hummed along his jaw, tracing the edges of her face with her lips, tugging his earlobe into her mouth, sucking instead of nibbling this time.

Her core came ever closer, staying in contact with him now, and he could easily feel her readiness. The scent of her, that indescribable fragrance of power balanced with femininity, filled his nose.

"Tell me what you want," she whispered into his ear. "I want you to say it."

"I want to touch you," he sputtered without thought, another tingle from the lasso frizzing down his arms, aching in a sublime way at being so powerless to her.

His lips were captured by hers again, her mouth opening to welcome him. In that way that only Wonder Amy had, she had released one of his hands from the lasso without his awareness until he was cognizant that her skin was brushing underneath his palm, then the dark hairs at the apex of her thighs, and then . . .

She tilted her head back with a long, low moan as Sheldon touched her. He had never imagined such a place in all of the Amazon, somewhere hidden behind such strength and yet so delicate and intricate. He explored it slowly, memorizing its sharp, silky ridges, gently plunging the depth of its valley over another deep groan, before learning all he could about its most precious jewel.

Holding fast to his chest, Wonder Amy's nails dug into the flesh there, her bracelets cold against his nipples, leaving crescent shapes as Sheldon watched her pitch above his hand, her breath coming ever quicker, her cheeks flushing, her eyes rolling back -

"Not yet," she ordered, surprising him by pulling his hand away. "That's not how I want it."

They were so close that it happened effortlessly, Sheldon almost coming undone at the feel of her taking him, engulfing him, his head lolling back and his eyes shutting in pleasure. There was a mutual sound from both their throats. The feeling was like nothing Sheldon had ever experienced before. Wonder Amy stilled there until the urgency passed and he opened his eyes to find her face, still glowing softly from the precipice she'd pulled herself back from, watching him keenly.

"It is almost too much," she stated, not a question.

"Yes," Sheldon admitted.

"Tell me when you are on the edge," she ordered and he nodded.

Wonder Amy rocked forward and back, slowly, adjusting her hips to change the angle. Unsure what to do with his freed hand now, Sheldon risked touching her skin, running his palm along her thigh, over the plump curve of her hip bone, back behind her to cup her bottom. She gave him a smile but did not comment.

Her speed increased, as did the pressure of her thighs, and it was not long before Sheldon was gasping.

"I'm - I'm -"

Instantly, she stilled. She watched him, curious but without judgement, until the desperate need passed. Sheldon nodded at her and the rhythm started again, first slowly and then ever increasing.

The lasso had gone tepid and limp around the wrist still above his head. He could have easily removed his hand, as it was in no more danger of burning him than in a lukewarm bath. And yet he did not. Sheldon found he quite enjoyed letting Wonder Amy take the lead, he enjoyed giving himself over to her, letting her set the pace, letting her grind against him, bringing him to the brink, holding him over the edge, but not letting him drop yet.

His stomach contracted and the soles of his feet started to tingle and - "I'm close!"

Before the words were out, she stopped, again watching him as he panted and swallowed, the compulsion leaving him just in time. He counted five deep inhalations and then he nodded to her.

Sheldon would not have thought it possible, but Wonder Amy seemed even more determined and authoritative this time. Her pace altered yet again, and she even leaned back to change the angle, closing her eyes and opening her mouth. One hand snaked up her body, an agonizing trail to watch from her knee to her waist and then to her breast, which she held in her firm grasp and squeezed.

It almost transcended the divide between pleasure and pain, not just the feeling of intense gratification he experienced from the heat of her core, but also the majesty of watching her exude so much power. Not just over him, but using him, of watching her find her own bliss, of using her body for her own pleasure, of knowing she was taking exactly what she wanted even while giving him what he needed.

Wonder Amy's breath was sharp and fast again, exotic sounds rolling out of her throat, her nipples seemed to harden further under her touch, and the only thing that could tear Sheldon's eyes away was the surprise of her other hand, weaving her fingers between his on her waist.

Then it was rushing at him again and he opened his mouth to tell her, but instead a roar filled the room as she pulsed around him, her fingers and thighs squeezing him. It was not a moan or cry or wail of pleasure, it was a roar of triumph.

He was overwhelmed then and his body was racked with spasms of an intensity he'd never known. His cry was loud and strong, too, but it was silenced by her thunderous rumble. All of his senses were filled by her, and his mind went blank, a white-out of his normal thoughts and analyses and there was only the power of Wonder Amy and the ecstasy of that moment.

It was liked sliding down a snowbank in an avalanche and, when he reached bottom, his eyelids fluttered open to see her looking down at him, her face glistening and flushed, her eyes radiant. A curl had come loose from her tiara in all the frenzy, and it rested against the dewy sweat of her cheek. Their bodies remained joined and their fingers were still intertwined on her waist. Something else welled up in him when he looked at her.

Timid but sure, Sheldon slipped his hand from the circle of the lasso and touched the errant lock of hair, pulling it gently from her face and brushing it back. Wonder Amy watched him, her face calm but her eyes swirling, and then she blinked slowly when his fingertip caressed the edge of her ear. His fingers were pressed very slightly between hers, a tiny movement.

When her eyes opened, an emotion so vast and so profound there was not a name for it passed between them. Their chests calming, there was only silence in the room and they held it together. Although his eyes burned with the effort, he held her gaze as long as he could, but then he had to blink and it was gone.

She was grinning again, and she plucked her hand away from his.

"That was most satisfactory," Wonder Amy said, and, as with most things she said, it was proclamation that would not brook dispute. Not that he wanted to. It had been, he thought, far more than most satisfactory.

With one quick swing of her leg, she was off of him, his body shivering from the loss of her heat. She grabbed the lasso from above his head with one hand and with the other she bent down to retrieve her costume from the floor. Then Wonder Amy walked out of his bedroom, giving him one last glance of her beautiful, naked backside.

Sheldon tried to call after her, but his throat was too dry. His muscles were sore from the throes of his orgasm, and his head felt light with uncertainty. Why had she left so quickly? He had not had time to thank her, to tell her all that he felt. Although he had great difficulty determining how he felt now, alone in his bed. But had she not felt it, too?

Confused and weak, Sheldon managed to reach for the blankets, throwing them over his head after he turned off the bedside light, nursing his tangle of emotions in complete darkness.

"Sheldon?"

Startled, he rolled in bed, lowering the blanket to see her form outlined by the dim light of the other room. Just as before, the sight of her wiped time away and he had no idea how long she'd been standing there. This time, her boots were hanging from her hand. She was wearing his pajama top, falling loosely around her, and an unnecessary glance at the bedside table confirmed its absence.

"You came back," he said with an exhale.

"I did not wish to leave."

Wonder Amy walked to the other side of the bed, her steps graceful and smooth even without her boots. Sheldon watched her, the way she moved. Now he could make out the musculature of her calves and the dainty arches of her feet. Her toenails were painted red. The boots dropped with a thud on the carpet, and he let out a tiny gasp as she removed first her tiara, then her glasses, and lastly her bracelets. She sat these all on the opposite bedside table, and next she flexed and rotated her barren wrists.

"Sometimes, I find them too heavy," was her only reply to his unasked question, her voice soft.

She looked over at him then, and trick of the faint light made it seem that perhaps there was the wetness of an unshed tear in her eye. Then Wonder Amy lifted the covers and slid in next to him, her body warm and supple, a softness where only her solidity had been before. She curled up tightly against his chest, pulling her arms in between them. Unsure of the protocol, Sheldon lay still but longing to touch her, to hold her.

"Hold me," she asked, an entreaty, not an order.

That new emotion, the one with a depth so great Sheldon could not see the bottom, washed over him again. He tentatively wrapped his arms around her smaller flannel-clad body, and he felt her relax in his embrace.

With a hesitant voice, he whispered, "Wonder Amy -"

"It's only Amy, now," she interrupted, not unkindly, her voice muffled by his chest. "Just Amy."

"I would hold them for you," he continued before he lost his nerve, "if you like, when they are too heavy. But only when you ask."

"I would let you."

He gently kissed the center of her forehead, where her tiara normally sat, an act with an honesty far greater than even her lasso could have compelled from him.

 _To be continued . . ._

* * *

 _ **Hooo! What a start!**_

 ** _Many of the reviews for_ The Wonder Amy Intervention _caught the hint that this story was already in the very embryonic stages, but I couldn't confirm or deny that because it was still too early to tell if the idea would come to fruition. I hope that those that asked for it enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it._**

 _ **Remember that you can follow me in Instagram [handle: aprilinparisfanfic] for story teasers, others visuals related to my work, and just general Shamy and bookish nerdiness.**_

 ** _Thank you in advance for your reviews; I can't wait to hear what you think of it._**


	2. Chapter 2

. . .

* * *

 **THE WONDER AMY PARADOX**

 **Chapter Two**

* * *

The alarm clock sounded promptly at 6:30 a.m., which, given that that was its function and program, was not surprising. A strangled groan came from somewhere under the mass of blankets, and Sheldon's long arm slipped out, his hand patting around on the nightstand until he located the source of the noise, which he then smacked into submission. For a man who merely kept the alarm clock as an emergency back-up device because his well-honed internal chronometer always awakened him precisely five minutes earlier, this sequence of events was shocking.

His other hand flopped out from under the comforter, folding it over with the motion, revealing his rumbled hair and his snarl. Sheldon stared up at the ceiling, confused and uncertain as to why he had overslept. It wasn't that he felt unwell, he ascertained - in fact, he felt excellent, oddly elated and sated - and it wasn't that he hadn't slept well - he actually recalled a very deep slumber, filled with vivid but pleasant dreams.

But, undoubtedly, he felt different. Something had changed last night.

Sitting up, his bladder pressing heavy in his lower abdomen, he reached over to the other side of the bed to steady himself and he stopped, all the air escaping his body, when he felt the pillow. It was in the wrong position. It had a head-shaped concavity to it. He lifted his hand up to sniff his palm, but then he realized it wasn't just on the pillow, it was tangled up in the sheets, it hung in the very air, it lingered on his skin.

Wonder Amy.

It all rushed back to him, every minute detail, every action, every look, every scent, every feeling . . . His body instantly responded. It hadn't been one of those vivid dreams. It had been real. But now the bed was empty, and his pajama top, the one he had held with such tenderness and gratefulness, lay neatly folded on the opposite nightstand. Her bracelets and glasses were gone. He did not need to inspect his apartment to know that every trace of her, other than her sustained scent and the used pillow, would be gone, too.

He scrambled to stand, and then, for reasons he could not fathom, covered himself, embarrassed at how obviously aroused the memory had made him, puzzled that he'd slept so well in a state of complete nudity.

He needed to find Wonder Amy. Stretching across the bed, he touched the pillow again: still warm.

But he needed to urinate. And put some clothes on. And what about . . . Throwing his hands up in disgust, Sheldon stomped into the bathroom.

* * *

"Where is she? Did you see her? Did you pass her in the hallway?" he demanded, slamming the door to the apartment across the hall behind him.

"Jesus!" Penny yelped, standing behind the island with her hand on her pink bathrobe. "You almost gave me a heart attack!"

"Knock much?" Leonard asked.

"I don't have time to go through that rigmarole," Sheldon retorted. "And lock the door much?"

"What is going on? We just got up," Penny asked. "And what are you yelling about?"

"Did you see her? This morning, last night, anytime? I woke up and she was gon -" Sheldon stopped suddenly, realizing his mistake.

"Oookay," Leonard said. "I'm going to ask this very slowly, because I don't think you mean what it sounds like you mean. What inanimate object, definitely not a female of the human species or any other species, can you not find this morning?"

Too late.

"I - I - I guess I just had a strange dream. I dreamt that . . ." His mind raced. If he lied, they would almost certainly know. But the truth was too fantastical to be believed. A spark went up. Perfect. "Last night, Wonder Amy appeared in my bedroom, got undressed, and had her way with my perfectly proportioned genitals resulting in simultaneous, mind-expanding orgasms."

"Phhhllllpppptttt." Penny's coffee went splaying out of her mouth and across the island.

"Yeah, right." Leonard shook his head and went back to his cereal. "And I played soccer with Spider-Man last night and then we went for froyo. You can go back to your apartment and look for your external hard drive by yourself so we can enjoy our breakfast in peace."

"Fine." Sheldon rushed to leave.

"Wait!" Penny called just as he was about to open the door. "Where are your pajamas? You're only wearing a robe."

He stopped, not turning around. Well, it worked out well last time. "I'm still naked from my frenzied lovemaking with Wonder Amy."

"Ew! Go away. I can't deal with your tall tales before I've finished my coffee."

Not wanting to waste time with a reply, Sheldon left as quickly as he could, practically running across the hall until he could shut the door to 4B behind him and lean back against it, almost panting. What had he been thinking? Despite the fact that it was real - he was certain of it - there was no way he could tell anyone what had happened. At best, he'd be a laughingstock; at worst, Wonder Amy would kill him. Literally. She could use her thighs and snap his neck like a twig.

Wandering back to his bedroom, having no appetite for his own breakfast, the smell hit him again. He sat on her side of the bed - he couldn't help but think of it that way - and picked up the pillow, pulling it close to his face and taking a deep breath.

As memorable as the coitus was, there was a burning stab in his chest when he remembered her small, suddenly fragile body in his arms as he drifted off to sleep, the way she asked for him to hold her, the moment when he discovered she hadn't left after all, the aching, sublime timeless span when she looked in his eyes even as they were still one. It was the nameless sentiment that simmered between them that he remembered with such an intense pain he didn't know how he'd make it through the day.

No, the worst would be if Wonder Amy never returned.

* * *

 _Somewhere after midnight in my wildest fantasies  
_ _Somewhere just beyond my reach  
_ _There's someone reaching back for me  
_ _Racing on the thunder and rising with the heat  
_ _Isn't there a superhero to sweep me off my feet_

 _I need a hero  
_ _I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night  
_ _She's gotta be strong, she's gotta be fast  
_ _And she's gotta be larger than life_

"Right, Sheldon?" The question was accompanied by a good-natured punch to his shoulder, and Sheldon turned his head to glare at Raj as he tore himself away from listening to the overhead music playing _that_ song, of all things.

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear the doubtless stupid thing you just said," he mumbled, looking back at his uneaten and unappetizing beef stew. He pushed it away from him with a lip curl.

"Dude, I just asked you if you were excited for the cafeteria upgrades. They're finally getting a cotton candy machine and you've been lobbying for that for years."

"I guess," he grumbled. "But the construction bottlenecks the line. Now the entrance and exit are the same."

"That's only temporary," Leonard reminded him. "Didn't care for the new recipe?" he asked, pointing with his fork.

Sheldon shook his head.

"Do you feel okay? You just missed a chance to insult the food based on its position in the space time continuum or some such nonsense," Howard said.

Leonard started, "He had a rough morning -"

"I'm fine!" Sheldon interrupted him.

"- He tried to tell me he'd had an actual sex dream last night and that -"

"Look!" Sheldon pointed. "It's that new scientist!"

Only when all three of his friends turned around to stare at her did Sheldon understand it was a mistake. Not only was it rude to the woman wearing the purple-striped cardigan in question, but it might invite uncomfortable inquires into how he'd been noticing her from afar in the cafeteria line for months, something about her tickling the edges of his brain, as though he'd seen her somewhere before.

"Oh, that's Dr. Fowler, the new neurobiologist that specializes in metahumans," Raj explained, turning back to his lunch.

"There's a new metahuman specialist on the faculty but you didn't tell me?" Sheldon asked. "She might know The Flash." She might be able to explain what happened last night, he didn't add.

"Maybe because when he told you that Bert Kibbler's new research was into the Asgardian metal _uru,_ you said Mjolnir itself was less of a blockhead than he was," Leonard replied.

"And I stand by that statement," Sheldon countered, pleased to have successfully changed the topic.

"So, Sheldon," Howard leaned in closer, "a sex dream? What kind of robot was it, exactly, because we know you don't like, well, people."

Or not.

"You know what?" Sheldon said, standing quickly enough that Raj jumped next to him. "I'm going to go introduce myself. She normally doesn't walk this way, but she'll have to now."

Having no choice but to follow through, he stepped into the path of the brunette scientist as she walked by their table. Now that he was there, directly in front of her, his palms felt damp and his heart hammered in his chest. He'd been both wanting and dreading this moment. She made a surprised noise at his sudden appearance.

"Dr. Fowler, I believe," he said. "I'd offer to shake your hand but they are both currently full with your tray."

"Oh, yes. That's me." Her brown hair fell straight and orderly around her heart-shaped face, pinned off to one side by a barrette.

"Dr. Sheldon Cooper, theoretical physics. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I understand you're a neurobiologist with an interest in metahumans. Normally I don't go in for all that squishy stuff, but I find metahumans endlessly fascinating. Welcome to Caltech."

"I've been here six months," she replied, her voice flat.

"Oh, yes, I've seen. By which I mean, I've not been watching you or looking out for you in the cafeteria line, I just mean I - I have an eidetic memory, so I've seen you once. Just once. In passing." Sheldon gulped. "You don't usually eat in the cafeteria."

"I eat in my lab. I prefer to eat alone. I'm returning there now, as a matter of fact." She blinked behind her glasses and Sheldon noticed that her eyes were green. How odd . . .

"I see you've chosen to sample the new beef stew recipe," he said, leaning closer to peer with disgust into her bowl. "I regret to inform you -"

It almost knocked him backwards. There, mingled with the distasteful smell of whatever was in the thick brown paste that was being passed off as beef stew, were the unmistakable notes of power mixed with sensuality. "Do you smell that?" he asked, swiveling his head around, a mumble to himself more than anything. "It smells like Wonder Amy is here somewhere - Acckk!"

Dr. Fowler had plowed her lunch tray directly into his chest, with the full weight of her shorter body behind it, a surprising display of force that almost pushed Sheldon over. He righted and turned back to her in shock, only to realize she'd spilled the entire bowl of beef stew all over her cardigan. The only odor filling his nose now was that wretched stew.

"Look what you've done!" Dr. Fowler cried.

"I didn't do anything!" Sheldon protested. "You ran into me!"

"Oh, it doesn't matter! Just help me clean it up!" She lowered what was left of her tray to the table, right in front of Howard, and reached for the cluster of napkins Leonard handed her. "I knit this myself," she moaned.

"Here," Sheldon said, waving his hand hurriedly so Raj would pull more napkins out of the dispenser and pass them to him. "It would be a shame to ruin it, then, after all that effort."

He stood for moment in front of her, holding his hands out uselessly, unsure how to proceed as she dabbed and wiped at one side of her chest. Then, finally, he reached over and started wiping her cardigan himself, trying to soak up the mess, but it was so thick and lumpy he had to move his hand back and forth over the top of her rib cage.

"Uh, buddy, you might not want to do that . . ." he heard Leonard say.

Dr. Fowler grabbed his hand, lifting it up and shoving it away, and he winced at her incredible strength; he actually thought she was going to break his fingers. All of them. "Don't touch me!"

"But you told me to help you!" he yelled back, shaking his injured hand, aware that the whole cafeteria was watching them now.

"Just go away!" But it was Dr. Fowler who stormed out, her face red and turbulent, leaving Sheldon standing there looking after her, realizing he'd just managed to be left by two separate women in a single twenty-four hour period.

* * *

"Dr. Cooper," Mrs. Davis said to him from across her desk in the Human Resources department, "it has come to my attention, via several employee reports, that there was an incident in the cafeteria today."

"Thank goodness somebody is looking into that beef stew! We all could have been poisoned," Sheldon said. Even though he was pleased that someone on the administration was taking an interest in the quality of the food that was being served, he really wasn't in the mood to have been summoned to talk about it.

"I'm not referring to the beef stew." Mrs. Davis frowned. "Some employees were very concerned that they may have witnessed an act of sexual harassment involving yourself."

Sheldon waved his uninjured hand dismissively. "Howard Wolowitz always talks to me like that."

"I see." She paused to write something on a note pad. "But what I'm referring to is that it appeared that you were touching a colleague's breast, not only in public but, more importantly, without her permission."

"Oh, I know what this was about," he replied, rolling his eyes. "Really, has no one heard of chivalry anymore?"

"Chivalry?" Mrs. Davis asked with raised eyebrows.

"The lady had clearly soiled her sweater and she was distraught, so I came to the rescue with napkins to assist in the clean-up effort," Sheldon explained. "Rest assured I'd do the exact same thing for you if you ever have need."

"I see." She took a deep breath and wove her hands together on the desk in front of her. "Dr. Cooper, it is inappropriate, in the workplace or anywhere else, to touch any area of woman's body without her express permission. Even in a professional setting, one should wait for the other party to extend their hand for a handshake instead of just grasping it."

"But she asked me to help!" Sheldon protested. "I can't believe she'd come and complain about it after she asked."

"Actually, she didn't." Mrs. Davis leaned back. "Bystanders reported it, but not her. But I have gone and spoken to Dr. Fowler directly, and she took full responsibility for the incident; she said she did ask you to help her clean up the spill without thinking about exactly what that would entail."

"See? She should be apologizing to me." He thought about adding that she almost broke his hand, but that would just start a whole other type of HR investigation.

"No." Mrs. Davis shook her head. "However, given her emphatic request, you will not be written up and no documentation will be placed in your personnel file. But do consider this a verbal warning, Dr. Cooper. And I'll be resending the section of the employee handbook on sexual harassment to your email for review. I strongly suggest that you do so."

"Fine," Sheldon grumbled.

* * *

"It could have been a lot worse," Leonard said as they climbed the stairs, each of them holding the Thai take-out they'd stopped to get on the way home from work. "I'm pretty sure you'll find there's a zero tolerance policy for some forms of sexual harassment in there."

"But it wasn't sexual harassment!" Sheldon complained again. "And what makes you think I'm actually going to read that PDF?"

"Listen, I'm just saying you're kind of lucky and you should be grateful that Dr. Fowler stood up for you to HR. I saw the whole thing, and I know you meant well, but . . ." Leonard shrugged. "I love you, buddy, but you're horrible with women. It's a good thing you don't have one; she'd probably have left you by now."

Sheldon didn't reply as they reached the fourth floor.

"Goodbye," Sheldon grumbled, heading for 4B. "Note I'm leaving you, not vice versa."

"Hey, wait," Leonard called, and Sheldon turned back. "Sorry, I shouldn't have said that. Maybe, somewhere, on another planet or something, there's a woman for you. Or a man. Or whatever. You just have to find her, er, it. Him?"

"It would be a woman," Sheldon clarified.

Leonard pointed his thumb over his shoulder to his apartment, "I know you've had a rough day. You want to bring your food over and eat with us, maybe play some video games or something?"

Shaking his head, Sheldon said, "No, thank you. I appreciate the offer, but I just want clear my head, curl up with a mug of hot chocolate and a comic book. I should ice my hand."

"Okay. But don't let it get you down. What are the chances you'll ever have to see Dr. Fowler again, right? I mean, she's a biologist and you're a physicist."

"Right. Never again."

"Yeah. Okay, goodnight then."

"Goodnight."

Sheldon locked the door behind him, throwing his keys into the bowl, and he took off his messenger bag with a sigh. He knew that he really ought to read the email Mrs. Davis sent; there was probably some sort of read receipt attached to it that she'd be waiting to receive.

Instead, he went to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water and unpacked his Thai dinner. Sitting down on one of the kitchen stools, Sheldon rubbed his forehead. He felt overwhelmed by everything that had happened since this time the day before, and panic started to creep into the back of his mind at his inability to process it all.

Yesterday evening, he'd known everything: exactly who he was and exactly what he wanted out of life and how to get it. Then, in the course of a single day, his entire status quo had been upended, making him question everything. First there had been the surprising high of his night spent with Wonder Amy and then there'd been the nervous excitement of actually introducing himself to Dr. Fowler, who, he was willing to admit now, had caught his eye and intrigued him for months. But both experiences had come crashing down on him: Wonder Amy had left without a goodbye, and Dr. Fowler would never speak to him again.

Twirling his noodles instead of eating them, Sheldon forced himself to take several bites. He wasn't hungry, but he knew the importance of the proper caloric intake to support brain health. And he'd skipped breakfast in his dismay this morning and then hardly eaten any of that toxic stew at lunch. Gagging it down, he switched the chopsticks to his other hand, flexing the sore fingers on his right hand.

The cherry on top of his day was that none of his friends believed him about his injury. No, there wasn't a bruise forming, but his knuckles throbbed in time with his pulse. Where and how had Dr. Fowler gained grip strength such as that? And she'd almost flattened him with her smaller body. She certainly didn't look like an athlete in her modest skirt and tights.

With a large sigh, Sheldon got up and resealed the last half of his meal and put it in the refrigerator. He made some hot chocolate, went to the bedroom and picked out a comic book before he changed into his pajamas. A clean set of pajamas, of course, although he looked longingly at the top from last night, still folded on the opposite nightstand. He growled and picked it up, along with his discarded pajama pants and underwear still pooled on the floor, and threw them all in the hamper.

He climbed into bed and drank his hot chocolate while he tried to read, but the words just swam meaningless before his eyes. It was early, much earlier than his usual bedtime, but he felt defeated and lost and exhausted by it all. Tossing the comic aside, he turned off the light and lay down. Unable to stop himself, he reached for the pillow - her pillow - and hugged it tight to his chest, curling around it just as he'd curled around her, letting her scent fill his head, letting it nurse the ache from Wonder Amy. He wished he had taken a pain reliever to sooth the ache in his hand from Dr. Fowler.

It was stupid, he knew, to be disappointed about either situation. He was not a morally loose, rake of a man. If he continued to have Wonder Amy at night, how could he, in good conscious, form an intellectual bond with Dr. Fowler during the day? Or if he managed to convince Dr. Fowler to give him another chance at a friendship of the mind during the day, how could he continue to entertain Wonder Amy at night?

Not that he'd ever see either one of them again.

 _To be continued . . ._

* * *

 ** _*_ Holding Out for a Hero _originally recorded by Bonnie Tyler and written by Jim Steinman and Dean Pitchford. Gender of lyrics changed by me (but why hasn't anyone done it before me?!)_**

 _ **As always, thank you in advance for your reviews!**_


	3. Chapter 3

. . .

* * *

 **THE WONDER AMY PARADOX**

 **Chapter Three**

* * *

Grumbling at the night, Sheldon got up and padded to the bathroom, rubbing his eyes. His bathroom schedule did not normally include midnight, and he chided himself for drinking the water and the hot chocolate immediately before falling asleep early. Or maybe it was the storm that had awakened him, for he could hear loud thunder and heavy rain pelting against the side of the building.

Closing the bathroom door was an old habit, from when he and Leonard were roommates, and it continued even now that he had officially taken over Penny's old apartment. When he finished and reopened it, it was the smell that hit him first, as strong and as spicy as his memory, but also fresh and wanting.

Wonder Amy was here.

It was an opaque night, unusually so, the moonlight that normally peaked between the blinds obscured by the heavy storm clouds outside. But it seemed even darker than it normally did when it rained. There was only the faint orange glow of the nightlight in the bathroom that travelled into the bedroom; the light it gave was weak but it was enough that he could just barely make out her silhouette.

She was standing facing him, at the end of the bed, her hands on her hips and her curled hair framing her face. Sheldon allowed his eyes to adjust to the dim and then he swallowed at the absence of the shadow of her skirt. Wonder Amy was naked.

"Sheldon," she said. Not a question.

"Wonder Amy. You came back. You're - you're not wearing your skirt."

"It was wet."

"Oh."

"So was my underwear."

He licked his lips as it occurred to him why the scent was so strong. "I apologize, I'm not sure why it's so dark in here," he said, reaching behind him for the switch to the bathroom light.

"Leave it!" Amy ordered. He dropped his hand. "It's dark because it appears all the lamps in the front of your building have been knocked out."

"By lightning?" Sheldon asked.

"It's a possibility. So are other causes."

A few seconds passed in silence, the air thick with the electricity of the storm in the room, the static rising goose bumps along Sheldon's skin.

"How long does a woman have to stand naked and wet in your bedroom before you kiss her?"

Racing, running, charging, he went to her, grabbing her face between his hands and hungrily kissing her, immediately seeking and receiving entrance for his tongue as she pressed her body against his pajamas, her hands reaching for his biceps, her cold metal bracelets sending a shiver down his spine. Her hair was damp, curling and tickling at his face as he lowered one hand down over her shoulder, down the slippery plain of her back, cupping her dampened bottom until his injured knuckles protested and still he did not let go. She was wet, all of her, everywhere. So very, very wet. Her lips, her skin, her . . .

Wonder Amy reached for his pajama top, ripping it and the undershirt underneath down the middle in one easy motion and pushing them down Sheldon's arms. He didn't bother to shake them off, still exploring the caverns of her mouth, still holding great handfuls of her rear.

Only when her hands reached inside his pajama bottoms, the other-worldly coldness of her bracelets touching him, did he throw his head back with a groan. The chill of the metal should have lessened his arousal, but it had the opposite effect. It took Wonder Amy nothing to lower the pants and Sheldon stepped out of them with ease, finally throwing off his ripped shirts, too.

Before he could reach for her again, she rotated in front of him and she leaned her back against him, the firm and generous curve of her buttocks pressing against his thighs, her arm stretching high above her, pulling his head down so that his face was buried in her hair. Her boot-covered calves shimmied between his. Sheldon wrapped one arm tight around her, spreading his palm over her stomach. "You're not naked. You're wearing your boots," he murmured into her mane.

"I know."

"I can't see you like this."

"I know."

No solution was offered, although she did allow Sheldon to pull her hair away from her neck so that he could bury his nose there, feeling her pulse under the rivet of rain that had formed in the hollow. "Wonder Amy," he said, his voice hoarse with desire.

The lasso was nowhere in sight, and Sheldon relished the opportunity to let his hands roam free over her body as his lips kissed and sucked upon the hot flesh of her neck. There were her broad hips and her soft abdomen, the shiver she gave when his fingertips skirted over her navel, the sinewy strength of her biceps when his hand travelled up them, the soft swell of her breasts, heavy and smooth as he cupped them.

He didn't know where it came from, but once the thought formed he could not send it away. Dr. Fowler's breasts. The curve of them, almost hidden beneath her cardigan and the blouse she wore. Unknowable. And, yet, he'd touched them, even if it was accidental. But they weren't soft . . . Her chest had been hard, rigid, almost as though her bra were made of metal. How odd -

"Sheldon? Why don't you continue?" Wonder's Amy voice pulled him back.

"I - I -" He buried his unspeakable answer in another wet kiss of her shoulder, resuming the squeezing of her breasts, throbbing at the sound of her moan as he pinched her nipples.

"Touch me." Sheldon snaked a hand down her body again, toying with the coarse hair there before slipping his fingers into her cavern, holding her steady as she groaned and bucked into him. His eyes almost rolled back into his head at the feeling there. She was so ready and ripe for him, and he had no difficultly in repeating those actions he knew she enjoyed.

"I can't wait," Wonder Amy gasped as she pulled away from him, throwing herself forward toward his bed, catching herself on her forearms, her bottom above her knees at it caught every bit of light in the room except where it dipped down into the darkness of her - "Sheldon, come!"

He had not needed the order to take the step up behind her, his knees hitting the edge of the bed as he held her hip with one hand and found his way into her with other. Again, a matching sound rumbled out of both of their throats as he sank into her even as he tried to go slow now that he was in control. "Deeper!" Wonder Amy growled and he pushed all the way, throwing his head back at the ecstasy of being consumed whole by her. The only thing better was pulling back and doing it all over again. And again. And again.

They were both panting hard, and the dampness of her skin only amplified the sound of his thighs smacking into her bottom with each thrust. "Oh, Amy," he groaned, suddenly stopping, trying to gather himself, trying to prevent his climax from coming too soon.

"Don't stop! Faster!"

So Sheldon drove on, faster, harder, gripping her hips tightly as he pounded out the frustrations of his day - waking up without her, Leonard and Penny doubting him, the teasing at the lunch table, the disastrous introduction to Dr. Fowler, the grilling by Mrs. Davis, even Leonard's comment about his chances with women - and then it came, this time red like fire, pouring out of him like molten lava and he yelled out "Amy!" before he collapsed against her back.

Resting there, the damp skin of her spine against his cheek, he listened their breathing, the only sounds in the room mixing with the sound of the vicious wind lashing against the building outside. It had been so furious he felt completely void of energy, of strength. This was nothing like last night, this was -

"Touch me! I was close!" Wonder Amy growled beneath him, and Sheldon pushed himself upright again, his legs weak and wobbly.

She didn't move or change position, and Sheldon looked at her prone form. "Like this?" he asked, running his tongue along his dried mouth. "But I can't see you."

"I couldn't see you."

Sheldon shrugged slightly. That was true. He reached out and ran his palm gently down her full bottom, letting his fingers curl slightly around its curve.

"Now!"

Quickly, he stopped his adoration of her and dipped his hand down where she wanted it and she hissed long and loud at his touch. "Is that good?" he asked in puzzlement.

"Yes! Don't stop!"

He rested his free hand on her hip to brace himself as he explored her again, his fingers slipping and sliding in the saturated spaces of her. Wonder Amy moaned deeply and bucked away from him when his thumb made contact with her most sensitive spot. "Hold me tight," she said, "around my waist."

Putting a knee up on the edge of the bed, Sheldon angled over her, wrapping his arm under her waist, gripping the soft flesh of her side. "Is this too hard?"

"No. It's good."

Holding her fast, he tried to draw her pleasure out of her in a deliberate pace and fashion, not wanting to rush it for her. He'd already rushed it once. Again, he heard the reverberations from her throat, exotic and foreign sounds rolling out of it as she strained against his arm in what he assumed was satisfaction.

And yet he wasn't entirely sure. A sudden flash of lightening from the storm outside almost blinded him and he could, in the white-hot light, see her clearly for the first time, her hands clawing at the comforter, her back arching and trying to pull from the yoke of both his arm and his fingers deep inside her, her hair tangled and wild around her head. She looked savage, as though she'd been caught in a trap, caged for this amusement.

Something about it almost turned his stomach and he was just about to drop her, when her roar filled the room at the same time as peal of thunder, an barrage of sound composed of both glutting and anger. Sheldon stayed with her, holding her, letting her ride it out, but, as soon as her last note died, he dropped his arms away from her, falling with most of his body on the bed next to her, everything below his knees hanging off the edge.

Wonder Amy did not stretch and lie down next to him; instead she stayed in her animalistic posture, heaving in the dark of the storm. If it any been anyone else, he would not have understood how they had the strength to hold themselves upright.

Sheldon reached for her hair, touching the entangled locks, softly tugging, trying to pull it away so he could see her face. "Amy?" he ventured softly. "Are you alright? You seemed . . ." He was at a loss to explain it to her.

She pulled away sharply, suddenly standing next to the bed in that way she had. Sheldon had to prop himself up on his elbows to see her, and even then it was only her silhouette against the blackness of night.

"That was most satisfactory." But it was not the tone of the night before. It felt thorny and complex.

Turning, she marched quickly out his bedroom, still naked, to the front room, even darker than the bedroom, and she shut the door behind her with a loud thud.

"Amy?" Sheldon called, sitting up now, but there was whooshing sound in the apartment, the wind inside as opposed to outside, and a flash of light under the door.

Pulling himself up and running, he threw open the door and yelled, "Amy!"

But she was gone.

Sheldon stood, helpless and practically blind in the living room, just past the door, next to the bookcase, waiting for her to return in whatever magical way she had of bypassing his locked apartment door. Surely she'd come back and dry herself with one his fluffy bath towels and cuddle next to him in bed for warmth. She'd take off her tiara and her bracelets, and it would make sense.

But the longer Sheldon stood there, as the storm outside abated and the sky in the living room window lightened, the more convinced he became that she wasn't going to return, that she never intended to stay the night. He shuffled back into the bedroom, almost stumbling over his ripped pajamas on the floor, but he ignored them to crawl back into his bed and pull the covers up over him again.

Last night, she had said that she did not wish to leave. But it was so obvious she wanted to leave tonight, that she was almost scrabbling to get away. Last night, she had been careful, purposeful, making sure he was comfortable with everything she wanted to do. Although it was true he'd willingly enjoyed the pleasure of her body tonight, never once had she asked for his opinion, for his own desires. Even when he tried to throttle his speed for her, even when he wanted to softly adore her body in foreplay, she'd ordered him on, ever faster.

There had been almost no words. While she had not been verbose the night before, either, she'd said something important. She'd shared, however obliquely, a burden with him. She'd revealed something too heavy for even her strong and capable shoulders to constantly carry. He'd seen through the gap in her armor last night, but tonight he'd not even seen her face.

It was not what Sheldon wanted. Sheldon wanted that moment when they gazed at each other, flushed and whole, and something with more power than even the woman wrapped about him passed between them. They had been joined by some cosmic force, something greater than their physical joining, something greater than anything Sheldon had ever known.

He had kissed her forehead not out of lust or even thankfulness for what she'd done with him, but rather as a consecration of that higher plane they had shared. The kiss on her forehead was supposed to be promise of a beginning. Sheldon felt complete and cherished and he wanted her to feel that way, too.

Tonight, though, in the dark and the abating storm, he felt only raw and used.

With a growl, he sat up in bed. He was going to sleep on the couch in the living room. He couldn't sleep or turn his memories off where he was. Wonder Amy's smell was suspended everywhere in the room.

 _To be continued . . ._

* * *

 _ **Thank you in advance for your reviews!**_


	4. Chapter 4

. . .

* * *

 **THE WONDER AMY PARADOX**

 **Chapter Four**

* * *

"I've been thinking about Dr. Fowler," Sheldon declared, interrupting what his friends considered worthy lunch chatter, which it was not.

"Um, doesn't she have a restraining order or something against you?" Raj asked.

"No. She'd just been avoiding the cafeteria for the past week, that's all," Sheldon corrected him.

"You've been looking for her?" Leonard asked.

"Not looking. Merely noticing. I'm a very observant person. She is either eating at a completely new time of day or she's bringing her lunch, because, with the construction, the only entrance and exit to the line would bring her directly past our table."

"If she doesn't have a restraining order, then it sounds like she needs one," Howard said.

"Um, okay. What have you been thinking about, then?" Leonard asked.

"Did you have to ask him?" Howard asked. "He's been quietly moping for a whole week. If I'd known accidentally getting to second base would silence him, I would have bought him a hooker years ago."

"Dr. Fowler is not a prostitute!" Sheldon protested.

"Shhh, lower you voice," Leonard whispered.

Still staring at Howard, Sheldon said, "I should have sent you that sexual harassment PDF." Then he cleared his throat. "I need to find a way to properly apologize to her for the incident."

"You were angry when Mrs. Davis called it an incident," said Raj.

"I think you should leave it alone," Leonard said.

"Why? I think the gentlemanly thing to do would be to pay her an amount equal to both the cost of her ruined sweater and the time she spent making it," Sheldon explained.

"You're paying her for touching her chest? Dude, that's the definition of prostitution," Raj pointed out.

"I am _not_ paying her for touching her chest! Ow!" Sheldon glared at Leonard for the kick he received on his shin. He leaned forward and spoke more quietly, "Do not be crass. To imply any woman, in any situation, would sell sexual favors is inappropriate and you should be ashamed of yourselves."

"So you did read the PDF after all!" Howard said. "We're just joking around."

"What would Bernadette say if she heard your jokes?" Leonard asked.

"She'd - well - mmmm." Howard took a bite of his sandwich.

"I thought so."

Raj said, "I think you need to rethink the money idea, though. It _is_ a little open to interpretation."

Tilting his head, Sheldon considered his point. While it was unlikely anyone else was as uncouth as Howard Wolowitz, the exchange of money itself did make some people uncomfortable. And uncomfortable was the last thing he should be making anyone at work. The PDF said so. "Perhaps you're correct."

"If you feel like you must do something - and I still think you should let it go - just write her a note apologizing," Leonard suggested. "Leave it in her faculty mailbox."

"But that's so impersonal."

"So?" Howard asked. "Why does it need to be personal? Personal got you in trouble."

Sheldon frowned. Why, indeed?

"Oh! I've got it!" Sheldon snapped his fingers. "I will buy her the wool necessary to recreate the sweater. Financially, it's equivalent to what she lost, but it avoids any unsavory connotation of payment for services rendered."

This was met with silence from his friends, and Sheldon had learned the lack of an immediate quip or comeback meant they couldn't think of an objection off the top of their heads. It didn't mean they loved the idea, either, but he'd take neutral.

"Raj, where's the nicest yarn store in Pasadena?" he asked.

"Why are you asking me? How would I know? Howard is the one that sewed his mother's clothes."

Lowering his chin, Sheldon looked at him out of the top of his eyes. "Raj."

"Okay, fine, there's a cute little shop on Colorado Boulevard. If you go at four, they serve tea and scones during the knitting circle."

* * *

He hadn't expected to be nervous. Sheldon paced in the hallway outside of the various biology labs and wondered, for the first time, if the silence from his friends hadn't been neutrality at all. What if the idea was too ghastly for words? No. He stopped walking and stood a little straighter, clutching the handles of the gift bag tight in his hand. Sheldon Cooper did not have ghastly ideas.

He was just on edge because of Wonder Amy. Or, rather, the lack of Wonder Amy. It had been over a week now since she'd last appeared in his bedroom, that night of the storm. And he was no closer to understanding what it all meant. The first time had been assertive, yes, but there had been that moment when it had all softened and gone gauzy and he felt - he was certain - that something more had passed between them than just physical completion of the sexual act.

But then, the second night, the last night, everything was different: the darkness, the way she turned away from him, how quickly she left afterwards. It was almost as though she hadn't wanted him to see her. He knew he couldn't really feel used, because it felt, at least initially, like such a great release to him, too.

Then she was gone. Wonder Amy had come to him in something like anger or fear, at the exact same time he felt the same, and they'd found a temporary bandage together. But the satisfaction had vanished along with her presence.

Something about the loneliness of the week had turned his thoughts to Dr. Fowler. She'd been in his thoughts before, here and there for almost six months, but now it was like she had taken up permanent residence. He remembered how she'd glared at him just before she stormed out of the cafeteria that day, and he wondered if she was just as angry and as frustrated as he was. As Wonder Amy had seemed. And then he thought about Mrs. Davis showing up her lab to ask her about what had happened in the cafeteria and he wondered if she was just as embarrassed as he was.

Mostly he thought about the way he never saw her around campus, how she said she preferred to eat alone in her lab, and he wondered if she was just as lonely as he was. Even more so, because he had friends, even if they were crass, and because he'd known the pleasure of falling asleep wrapped around another person. Once.

Taking a deep breath, he walked up to the lab door and raised his hand.

Knock, knock, knock. "Dr. Fowler."

The door was labeled **A. F. Fowler, Ph.D., Neurobiology** , he noticed.

Knock, knock, knock. "Dr. Fowler."

What did the A. F. stand for? Something else on which to speculate. When did his life fill with speculation and mysteries instead of the facts and figures upon which he formerly relied?

Knock, knock, knock. "Dr. Fowler."

"Come in!" her voice called and, separated from her body, something about it sent a memorable thrill through him. And why was he getting déjà vu all the time lately? Sheldon shook it away and opened the door.

"Dr. Fowler?" he asked. She was facing away from him, only her white lab coat and her hair, now pulled back into a low ponytail, visible.

"Dr. Cooper!" He heard the surprise in her voice, and, just as he was about to answer, a large bottle on the table in front of her turned over, and the room was filled with the nauseating smell of formaldehyde.

"Oh!" Sheldon threw his spare hand over his nose and mouth. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, yes, it's fine. I'm just clumsy!" Dr. Fowler fluttered at the table, righting the bottle, reaching with gloved hands into a bin. She pulled out a pair of goggles, which she put on, and then two masks, one of which she lowered over her face before she turned to face him.

"Would you like help cleaning that up?" Sheldon asked as she approached him. The goggles were tinted and because of that and the mask he could hardly make out her face.

Dr. Fowler held out the mask to him, and he took it gratefully, hoping it would staunch the stench of memories of classroom dissections. "No, thank you. I don't have another set of goggles, and that's the required personal protective equipment for formaldehyde."

"I meant I'd go get a janitor." At least the mask seemed to be working, and he took a deep breath of the fresher, if hotter, air from inside of it.

"What brings you down here?" Dr. Fowler asked, instead. Her voice was muffled by the mask.

"Oh, yes." He held up the gift bag. "I brought you an apology for what happened in the cafeteria."

"That's not necessary. I'd rather just put it all behind me."

"No, it is. I don't want to dwell on it, either, but I know I need to thank you, too, for your help with Mrs. Davis," he said.

"It wasn't help, it was the truth." Even with her voice subdued because of the mask, she sounded forceful.

"Please." He pushed the bag closer to her. "After I leave, you can throw it away if you wish, but I wanted to do this. I just meant to introduce myself, not to make you uncomfortable."

Dr. Fowler looked down - he thought, he really couldn't see her eyes well behind those goggles - and then she nodded. "Okay. Let me take off my gloves."

She pulled off the gloves and reached for the bag, stepping over to set it on her desk. Slowly, she removed the pile of tissue paper from the top, and pulled out the two skeins of wool, the two shades of purple that Sheldon remembered being in the sweater that was ruined. "To replace your sweater, you said you knit it yourself," he explained in a rush but then felt stupid pointing out the obvious.

Instead of answering, Dr. Fowler stroked the wool with her palm.

"I don't knit, but the proprietor informed me it's the finest, softest wool for such a purpose."

"It is. It's lovely," Dr. Fowler said softly, almost inaudible behind that mask and Sheldon wondered if she was perhaps smiling behind it. He really wished he could see her face. Should he step closer?

"There's something else," Sheldon prodded.

Dr. Fowler put down the wool and reached in the bag again, pulling out the cardigan. It had occurred to him - well, actually, Penny had asked him how yarn was a gift if she had to make it herself - that perhaps a completed cardigan would be a better option. He didn't know if Dr. Fowler knit for the enjoyment of the hobby or if she did it for monetary reasons. Although, given what that wool cost, he thought it must be the former.

After Penny's comment, he'd meant to go to the mall and buy a purple cardigan, but when he passed by the ThinkGeek store this one in the window had caught his eye instead. It was royal blue with a row of embroidered white stars around the neck. While it was true he'd never seen Dr. Fowler wear an embellished cardigan before, something about it struck him and it just seemed . . . right for her, somehow.

"It's from the Wonder Amy collection."

Again, she didn't immediately reply, instead she held the cardigan up and seemed to inspect it. Suddenly, Sheldon doubted his choice. What had he been thinking, unnecessarily mixing these two occurrences from his life?

"You're a fan of Wonder Amy?" Dr. Fowler asked.

"Well, yes, I suppose so. But I don't have a Tumblr devoted to her, if that's what you mean."

He couldn't be sure, but it seemed like her mask may have shifted slightly from some movement of her face underneath it. "You met her once, didn't you? I saw it on the Internet."

Sheldon groaned. "Yes, at the picnic. I should be earning royalties for that video." But then he added, to make it clear it was not just that gobsmacked man in the video imagining things, "I have met with her two other times."

"What do you like so much about her?" Dr. Fowler asked, lowering the sweater and looking straight him. Not that he could see much because of those goggles. "It is her perfectly curled hair? The scantness of her clothing? The way she wields her sword?"

Never good at reading people, Sheldon found himself perplexed by the questions, especially as he could not see her face to gain further clues as to her meaning. But there seemed to an edge of something in Dr. Fowler's voice, something vaguely uncomfortable. He licked his lips and debated about how to reply. He had not come down here to discuss Wonder Amy, although he could now see why the sweater may have led Dr. Fowler to that conclusion.

And how to answer? His mind raced over the events of the two nights in his bedroom, still confused about and hurt by the second. But the first . . . he fast forwarded and then slowed and he remembered her in his arms, the kiss on her forehead, that indescribable feeling . . .

"Actually, I liked her best when she was . . . just Amy."

Dr. Fowler didn't reply for several ticks of the wall clock, she only tilted her head slightly at him. "Just Amy?" she finally whispered. Time seemed to slow and Sheldon had a vague feeling like he'd had when he kissed Wonder Amy on the forehead, but subtle and already slipping away, like a dream. Really, déjà vu again?

Then she coughed and straightened herself. "What does that even mean?" She lifted the sweater back up and tossed it, unfolded, into the bag. He was wrong; it must have the wrong thing to say.

"Maybe the sweater was a bad idea, too personal. I'll it take back if -"

"No!" Then, calmer, "No. It will work. I need something to wear while I take the time to knit a replacement." She set the wool and the tissue paper in the bag after the cardigan. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Sheldon waited for her to say something else, but when she didn't he said, "Well, I guess that's everything I came for."

"It seems like it."

"Are you sure you don't want me to get the janitor in here to clear up the formaldehyde?"

"I'm sure."

"Well, then, I guess this goodbye."

"Goodbye."

Sheldon nodded and turned, stopping in the frame of the door, lifting his mask off, recoiling from the renewed smell of the spilled chemical. "Do you need this mask?"

"No, it's disposable."

"Of course. Um, goodbye."

"Goodbye."

One step out and then one back in. "I forgot to ask, if I may, why do you knit?"

"Why do you play video games?" She hadn't moved from her desk.

"How do you know I play video games?" Sheldon asked, a little affronted at the assumption.

She pointed to his tee shirt. "Isn't that Zelda?"

"Oh, it is." He looked down and shrugged. "I find the mindlessness of it calms me after a stressful day."

"It's the same with knitting. Goodbye."

"Yes. Goodbye."

Sheldon let the door close behind him this time; after he was certain it was shut, he leaned against the wall in the hallway, replaying her altered voice in his head, trying to decide if it meant more than it seemed, wishing he could have seen her face.

* * *

That night, he awoke to the barest brushing against his lips, like someone was dragging a piece of that fuzzy yarn across them. Sheldon's eyelids fluttered open.

"Wonder Amy!" She pulled her face away with her signature smile and he struggled to sit up. The bedside light was already on and he could see her face clearly this time. "You came back. Why?"

She shrugged, her breastplate bobbing over her bosom. "Is it not enough that I wished to see you?"

"Of course! Of course."

Bending over him, Wonder Amy closed her eyes and brought her lips close again -

"Wait!" Sheldon said. She pulled back, her brow furrowing in the most adorable way. "It's just, um, last time, it was confusing, I guess. You seemed so -"

"Caught," she interrupted him softly.

"Yes," he agreed.

"I had a bad day. It happens, even to superheroes. Something happened that day and I thought I was going to be discovered, and I . . . I shouldn't have used you for my own purposes. I needed release, but it was wrong to get it that way, and I apologize. If you wish for me to leave, I will."

"No!" Sheldon swallowed. "I thought I'd used you, you know. I'd had a bad day, too. It happens, even to geniuses."

Wonder Amy chuckled. It was not the wry, amused smile he was used to, it seemed like genuine happiness.

"Why are you here, Amy? Besides my fine physique and my intellectual prowess and my sparkling wit?" Sheldon asked.

"Isn't that enough?" she asked with a playful wink.

"I'm not sure anymore," Sheldon answered honestly and her smile fell away as her face softened. Wonder Amy sat on the edge of the bed, then, trying to find purchase on the sliver next to him, and Sheldon scooted over to make room for her. She reached up to rest her hand on his pajama top, above his thundering heart.

"I came tonight because you're good man, Sheldon Cooper."

It wasn't quite the answer he was seeking. Why, then, had she come those other nights? But there was no doubting the sincerity in her voice. Was he a good man? There had been numerous times in the past week and half he hadn't felt like one, but he had to admit it felt redemptive to give Dr. Fowler the gift, to watch the way she caressed the yarn, even if her reaction to the sweater had been confusing.

"You are a good man," Wonder Amy repeated, leaning forward to kiss his cheek. "It is I who is honored to come here, to you."

Sheldon studied Wonder Amy's face, and she looked back at him openly with nary a blink of her beautiful green eyes. Her hand still rested upon his heart, where she could no doubt feel its erratic beat. It felt, for a moment, like an aftershock of that moment so many nights ago, when everything had made perfect sense. And, for tonight, he was willing to let that be enough.

"Will you stay, afterwards?" he asked.

"Yes."

This time, she let him love her first, her cry of thunder coming as his hand was caught between her legs. She let him roll over her and she whispered "slowly" into his ear, and, now that he had more practice, he found it easy to love her that way, lowering his pelvis between her knees, the sides of her boots against his hips, her bracelets along his back, as he looked down and lost himself in her green eyes.

This time, it came purple and hazy and soft, like being wrapped in the warmth of her, just as her legs were wrapped around him in that moment. She ran her fingers through his hair afterwards, and he felt that nameless emotion weaving its way between them again.

This time, like last time, she put on his pajama top and took off everything else that tied her to Wonder Amy and she fell asleep curled in his arms as just Amy.

But, whoever she was, she was still gone when daylight came.

 _To be continued . . ._

* * *

 _ **Thank you for all your kind reviews!**_


	5. Chapter 5

**. . .**

* * *

 **THE WONDER AMY PARADOX**

 **Chapter Five**

* * *

"Penny," Sheldon started, counting out the napkins in his hand, "I realize you are not a genius like I am or a doctor like Leonard or even a lowly engineer like Howard -"

"Hey!" Howard said.

"- but I had thought you were cable of counting to six. However, you've given me seven napkins." Sheldon held out the extra white cloth.

"I meant to give you seven," Penny said with an eye roll from the kitchen, where she was assembling glasses. "For Raj's friend."

"Raj's friend? As in a _girl_ friend?" Bernadette asked, perking up from the other end of the sofa.

"I don't know, he just said he was bringing a friend tonight and they might be a little late," Penny explained with a shrug. "I thought you guys all knew more than I did. He said it was a work friend."

Leonard sat the take-out food down on the coffee table with a confused look. "No, this is the first we've heard of it."

"Who do you think it is?" Howard asked, helping Leonard pull out and arrange the various containers.

"I hope it's not Mrs. Davis," Sheldon said. "Or Kripke. Or Bert. Or Leslie Winkle. Or that lunch lady whose hair is always coming loose from her net. Or -"

"Is there anyone at Caltech you do like?" Bernadette interrupted him.

Sheldon shrugged. "I tolerate your husband."

"Quick, Bernie, brush up against him! Apparently the power of breasts renders him mute for a week. And yours are bigger than the last ones!"

Shooting Howard a scathing look, Sheldon saw that Bernadette had already beat him to it. "I'm _not_ doing that!"

"You know, Sheldon," Penny said, sitting down in her usual brown chair, "you do seem a little more chipper and talkative this week. I forgot to ask, did everything go okay with that lady doctor?"

"Dr. Fowler is just a doctor. Constantly pointing out that she's female in a male-dominated profession is demeaning," Sheldon answered.

"Did you memorize that sexual harassment PDF?" Leonard asked.

Sheldon looked over at Leonard and tapped his temple. "Without even trying."

"Wait, does that mean you're just a doctor now, too, and we won't get any more emails signed 'Dr. Cooper, Overlord and Genius?'" Howard asked.

"No, because I'm not _just_ anything." Sheldon turned back to Penny. "In answer to your question, I think it went well. While Dr. Fowler is not a verbose conversationalist and seems to have difficulty with her fine motor skills, I believe she accepted my apology in the spirit in which it was given."

"So, that's good, right?" Penny asked. "It certainly put you in a good mood."

Tilting his head, Sheldon considered this. Was he in a good mood? Was it Wonder Amy's visit last week that put him there, a return to the gentleness of their first night together? Maybe. But also . . . "Dr. Fowler has returned to getting her lunch in the cafeteria. Every day since our discussion. Today, she even wore the cardigan I gave her with a red floral blouse and a yellow skirt. It was a pleasing combination."

"Not like he's stalking her or anything," Howard said.

"She has to walk right by our table now."

"Are you going to see her again?" Bernadette asked.

"I just said I see her every day when walks by our table." Sheldon didn't add that she more ran than walked, dipping her head and pulling her hair over her face in such a fashion that it seemed she was disinviting conversation, which stung him more than he thought it should.

"No, like an actual conversation," Penny said. "Like you go to her lab again or eat lunch with her or, I don't know, ask her to meet you at a coffee shop."

"Why would I meet her at a coffee shop? I don't drink coffee." Why did Penny's thoughts sting more than he thought they would, too?

"Because Leonard says you get all tongue-tied whenever you talk about her," Penny said, exasperated, rolling her eyes.

"Um, that was a secret," Leonard mumbled.

"I most certainly do not!" Sheldon almost yelled. He was a chivalrous Southern gentleman, not a two-timing cad. Penny made it sound like he was half in love with Dr. Fowler, which could not be the case because he was in a relationship with Wonder Amy. Maybe. He didn't know. Sort of. He thought. The only thing increasing his heart rate was this endless discussion about it.

"Hello, everyone! Here we are!" Raj yelled as he opened the apartment door. Sheldon almost had the urge to run and hug him for changing the subject -

Their eyes met and Sheldon froze. She seemed to do the same.

Dr. Fowler. Raj had brought Dr. Fowler. Raj's friend from work was Dr. Fowler. Raj had brought Dr. Fowler to their Friday night gathering of friends, the gathering Sheldon had started when he lived in this very apartment with Leonard. Raj had brought Dr. Fowler and he hadn't told Sheldon anything about it.

"Everyone, this is Dr. Fowler, the newest neurobiologist at Caltech," Raj introduced her. She was still staring at Sheldon, clearly in shock to see him, too.

"It's - uh - I - you - what - um - huh?" Sheldon stuttered.

"Yep, smitten for sure," Penny leaned over to murmur to Leonard.

"Told you," he replied.

"I am not twitterpated!" Sheldon turned around and whisper hissed at them.

Raj started the introductions with Howard and Bernadette, but Sheldon's delicate and perspective nose twitched at a familiar scent. "Excuse me," he said and ran out the door and across the hall to his apartment.

"Wonder Amy?" he called after he shut the door. There was no reply because there was no Wonder Amy in the entire apartment. In fact, other than when he lifted her pillow up to sniff it, the smell was fainter here. Back in the hallway, he took a deep nose full of air. But she'd definitely been through here.

Confused, he returned back to 4A just in time to hear Penny say, "Should we call you Dr. Fowler? We're not big on formality here."

"My full name is Amy Farrah Fowler. You may call me Amy."

"Amy?" he asked, the coincidence stopping him short in the doorway.

Dr. Fowler glanced at him but didn't turn her head. "Yes. Amy."

"Have a seat," Bernadette said, patting the sofa cushion next to her. "Here, you can sit in the middle, there's plenty of room. I don't bite, I promise."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that," Howard said.

Sheldon rounded the back of the sofa and squeezed by Leonard's big white chair to look down at his own empty spot. Dr. Fow - Amy - Dr. Fowler sat down in the middle of the sofa, picking up her Chinese food. "Is something wrong?" she asked without lifting her head.

"Oh. No." Sheldon took his usual spot, hugging his legs close to the arm of the sofa to avoid touching her. The last time he'd done so had considerable undesired consequences.

"Don't worry, he doesn't bite, either," Bernadette leaned to say to Dr. Fowler. "Besides, I bet you could take him. I heard you almost broke his hand."

"I did?" Dr. Fowler's face swung to look at Sheldon.

"Oh, um, well, no. It was merely a flesh wound. It was nothing," he explained quickly. He squinted his eyes to look closer at her face, but she turned away with a fast and sharp motion.

"How do you all know each other?" Dr. Fowler asked.

His friends launched into their stories, about how the men all worked together at Caltech, how Leonard had been Sheldon's roommate, how Penny moved in across the hall and stole both Leonard's heart and Sheldon's apartment, how she'd introduced Howard to Bernadette, and how their infant daughter Halley was sleeping in Leonard and Penny's bedroom as they ate. Since there were no major factual errors in their version of events, he let the others speak without interruption, his mind turning over more important matters.

Why had Raj brought Dr. Fowler? Was it an attempt at romance as Bernadette implied? But didn't Raj know that he - well, he what, exactly? That he'd bought her the very sweater she was wearing? And why did it bother him so much?

"So, Amy, what brought you to Caltech?" Leonard asked, and Sheldon's ears perked back to the conversation.

"Oh, nothing special. I was at UCLA before this, and there was an opening and I applied and . . . I guess I just wanted a change," she answered, the last bit a mumble, looking down at her chicken and broccoli.

"Wait, when were you at UCLA? Was it when those mutant lab monkeys escaped?" Howard asked.

"Yeeeesssssss," Dr. Fowler said, "but that was on the other side of campus."

"But I thought I read they were in the neurobiology section. Am I wrong?" Leonard said.

"They were," Dr. Fowler replied. "I - I meant I was on the other side of campus right when it happened. On an errand in another building."

"So you missed the excitement? Wonder Amy and the whole thing?" Raj asked.

Sheldon rotated slightly toward Dr. Fowler, fascinated by this tale. But she still didn't look at him.

"Yep. Rotten luck, I guess." She shrugged and took a bite of her food.

"Do you know how long the mutant monkeys were there? No one at UCLA will say, they say the monkeys themselves destroyed the evidence. The news people keep talking about a possible conspiracy or cover-up. They're calling it Monkeygate now," Bernadette said.

A pause before Dr. Fowler replied, "I don't know anything about it. I'm sorry. I guess I'm boring you all."

"No, no." "That's not what we meant." "Why would you know?" several of them said at once.

Although Sheldon would have loved to hear anything about the mutant lab monkeys, Dr. Fowler's discomfort was obvious. The last thing he needed was for this evening to end in disaster. "Change of topic," he announced. "You're a metahuman specialist, is that right?"

"Oh, fun!" Penny said. "I didn't know there were people like that."

"Metahumans or scientists?" Sheldon asked her.

Penny rolled her eyes.

"There isn't a standard classification for metahuman studies yet, although I understand some universities are starting programs," Dr. Fowler explained, although she looked at Penny when she spoke, not him, "but I am quite knowledgeable in the field, yes. I think you could correctly use that description of my expertise."

"What are you studying now?" Leonard asked.

"My current study is about the neurological differences in the brain of some metahumans that allow flight."

"Wow!" Raj said. "Do you get to meet Superman or anything and fly with him?"

"No. DNA samples and test results from metahumans are closely controlled by the government. My study is small, very theoretical. I'm just trying to gather enough argumentative data to get a grant and permission to study actual metahumans," Dr. Fowler explained.

"Is flight your primary area of interest?" Sheldon asked.

Dr. Fowler glanced over at him but quickly turned away. Why did she keep doing that? And what was the lingering smell?

"No. My primary area of interest - what I'd most like to study - is metahuman sexuality."

Sheldon dropped his fork, pulling back from trying to sniff Dr. Fowler, but no one seemed to notice as Howard said, "I volunteer as tribute!"

"Good, cause you'd be just as dead as those losers from District 8," Bernadette shot back.

"What exactly about, um, it?" Penny asked.

"I'd like to determine how metahumans choose their mates or why some elect not to pair-bond. If they don't pair-bond, do they seek sexual release or is it unnecessary? If they're the result of mutation, what are the implications for any future offspring? Are they even capable of procreating? If they're aliens, are they capable of procreation with humans or only their own kind? Are their genitalia even arranged for successful copulation with humans?"

"But isn't your expertise in neurobiology?" Sheldon asked. "That seems more like plain biology to me."

"Yes, it is," Dr. Fowler agreed, "but neurobiology doesn't exist without plain biology first. But I do intend to focus on the neurological aspects. What are the biochemical processes in a metahuman's brain that makes them search for a mate? And why one type of mate over another? Is attraction the same for them? Are metahumans able to separate the emotional from the physical, something humans aren't good at, no matter what they claim? What does it take for a metahuman to fall in love? Does a metahuman have the same maternal or paternal desire and attachments?"

For the first time that evening, she had turned to looked at him while she spoke, and, even though her eyes were focused somewhere over his shoulder, Sheldon understood that look. It was the look of aspiration, of a new understanding of the world just beyond the threshold. The science was already so real to her that she could see it clearly. Dr. Fowler's face shone with excitement just thinking about it and her eyes danced in belief. Those eyes, that face . . . Sheldon leaned in ever closer as he listened, not only mesmerized by her words but also distracted by something -

"Do you have an initial hypothesis?" Raj asked, and Dr. Fowler turned sharply away from Sheldon, breaking the spell.

"Yes."

Dr. Fowler didn't continue, and Sheldon felt the edge of his lips turning up as he noticed everyone else ever-so-subtly lean in closer, hoping she'd volunteer more. But Sheldon respected that she was keeping her scientific thoughts secret; he, too, knew better than to blab his greatest suppositions to just anyone.

"And?" Howard prompted.

"It's a good one."

Sheldon grinned into his noodles. Well played, Dr. Fowler, well played.

"Can you imagine having sex with a superhero?" Penny asked.

"Often," he heard Howard mutter followed quickly by what sounded like a slap.

"I mean," Penny continued, "just the idea leaves me sore." She crossed her legs tightly.

"Just think about the stamina," Leonard added.

Howard chimed in with, "You could get any girl you wanted. They'd flock to you."

"I bet Captain America picks up his own stinky socks and puts them in the hamper," Bernadette growled.

"I apologize for the crudeness of this line of conversation," Sheldon said to Dr. Fowler. "I wish I could tell you that our usual topics are of a higher caliber but . . ." He gave a resigned shrug.

"I don't mind," Dr. Fowler said. "It's these exact stereotypes and preconceived notions that I want to study. I want to know if they're based in fact or if they're just wild longings from the over-active imaginations of the sexually incompetent."

"Touché," Raj sniggered.

"Well, I think they're all wrong," Sheldon said.

"Why?" Dr. Fowler asked.

He gulped. Why had he said that? Aloud? "Well, I don't think that superheroes want to be superheroes all the time. I think they would also be capable of great tenderness . . . vulnerability even."

A great roar of laughter went up from his friends, and Sheldon looked down into the last of his noodles. Of course they would laugh at him about this. They thought he was just as neutered as Raj's dog, they didn't know what hunger churned in his loins. Or what greater, more powerful emotion burned in his chest and behind his eyes when Wonder Amy took off her bracelets and rested peacefully in his arms as she drifted off to sleep.

Suddenly uncomfortable, Sheldon wiggled in his spot. Why did he always end up thinking about Wonder Amy at the strangest times? Like around Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler, for instance? It felt inappropriate, as though he was cheating. But cheating on what? With whom?

"Just Amy," the other Amy next to him whispered, and he turned sharply to look at her. She wasn't laughing. Instead she was gazing somewhere past her lap, twisting her fork mindlessly in her hand. How had she known what he was thinking about?

"How do you and Raj know each other?" Leonard asked, oblivious to everything but his own recent laughter.

"Excellent question," Sheldon mumbled, turning back.

"We met at the Faculty Fun Time Board," Raj volunteered.

"The what?" Sheldon asked.

Raj sighed. "The bulletin board where various clubs and flyers for outings that faculty members might engage in together on their free time are posted. To socialize together."

"That sounds horrific." Sheldon shivered.

"Funny, I thought the same thing about socializing with you and then, bam!, you were my roommate," Leonard said.

"Correction," Sheldon pointed his fork at him, "bam! you were _my_ roommate. And you were not promised fun times; that's why I didn't put my notice up there."

"Go on, tell us the story about meeting Raj," Bernadette prompted.

Raj again! Sheldon sighed as he took another bite. Why was Bernadette always trying to throw Raj and Dr. Fowler together? And why did he care?

"It was nothing," Dr. Fowler said and Sheldon let out a breath of relief. "I was just looking to see if there were also notices there for a good place to get a pedicure -"

"Let me guess: Raj was, too," Howard quipped.

"- and he introduced himself. We haven't spoken since. I was surprised when he came to my lab today to invite me here," Dr. Fowler finished.

"Well, I'm glad you came," Bernadette said with a smile. "What is that perfume you're wearing? It's very . . . exotic."

"Perfume?" Sheldon asked. "Here, let me guess." He leaned in close to her straight brown hair and closed his eyes -

Dr. Fowler pulled away from him and he was forced to sit back. Penny shot him a dirty look and Sheldon sent her the stink eye back.

"It must be some manufacturing chemical on this new sweater. I don't wear any perfume," Dr. Fowler explained.

"I don't think so. When I purchased that sweater it smelled as fresh as a daisy -"

"- which is exactly how you smell!" Leonard finished for him, kicking him in the shin.

Awkward didn't fully explain the silence that followed. Finally Raj jumped up and said, "Amy, would you like some more water? I'll get you some more water."

Without waiting for an answer, Raj took Dr. Fowler's glass from in front of her, carrying it to the kitchen.

"I'll help," Sheldon said. "The water dispenser on the refrigerator, it sticks." He, too, sprang up and toward the kitchen.

"Um, our fridge doesn't have a water dispenser," Leonard murmured.

Ignoring him, Sheldon raced to the kitchen, catching Raj near the sink, "What are you doing?" he hissed, trying to whisper but unable to conceal his displeasure.

"Getting our guest some water," Raj answered over the sound of the facet being turned on.

"No, not that. I mean inviting our guest in the first place."

"What? Why not?" Raj turned to face him. "She walks by our lunch table every day to eat alone in her lab and it made me think that maybe, since she's newer, she might want to meet some people."

"But she's already met us."

"You mean you already sexually assaulted her."

"It was not sexual assault, it was an accident!" Sheldon crossed his arms. "And she accepted my apology."

"Which is why I thought I could invite her now, because your restraining order had expired."

"Not funny. Any of it. First of all, there was no restraining order. Second, sexual assault and stalking are not appropriate fodder for jokes," Sheldon pointed out.

"Did you mind meld with that PDF?"

Raj tried to step around, but Sheldon scooted to block his path. "You didn't answer my question. Why did you invite her? Are you trying to butter her up for intercourse?"

"You're the sicko who keeps sniffing her like a bloodhound."

"She is not for you!" Sheldon snapped.

"Like she's for you? In case you've forgotten, I met her first. I'm the one who told you what her name was. And I haven't spilled my lunch on her."

"But I went to her lab and we had - we had a moment!" They had, hadn't they? A moment over that sweater, a moment Dr. Fowler clearly remembered because just referenced it on the sofa, thinking her recollection wouldn't be noticed amongst the laughter. But Sheldon noticed.

"Stop the presses, Sheldon Cooper had a moment. I met her first, I call dibs."

"You can't call dibs! I've had a longer conversation with her."

"I invited her tonight!"

"I bought her a sweater!"

"If I want her, she's mine!"

"Wel, I - I -" Sheldon floundered. This was ridiculous! He had Wonder Amy already. In a fashion. How had this conversation spiraled out control? He couldn't date Dr. Fowler, he just wanted to know why Raj had brought her without asking, clearly making both Sheldon and her uncomfortable.

The silence in the room was deafening, and he pivoted slowly toward the sofa. It was clear everyone there had heard every single word. They ware staring at him and Raj, their mouths open in horror and their eyes wide.

Everyone but Dr. Fowler.

She was standing, her fists knotted at her side, her face thunderous, red and flushed, her eyes squinted in anger, her mouth twisted into a dangerous scowl. In all his years, Sheldon had never seen a person white-hot with rage before that moment. Even his mother.

"I belong to no one but me!" she screamed, her voice deep and rumbling, filling the space, painful to his ears. The power of her voice actually ruffled his hair and he would swear the entire apartment shook like a earthquake. Raj dropped the glass of water and it shattered on the floor.

Then Dr. Fowler ran to the door, pulling it open so hard the door knob and the surrounding wood was torn jagged from the plank, leaving a gaping hole. She didn't stop; she just threw the heavy piece away from her, letting it hit the wall across the hallway ( _My apartment!_ , Sheldon thought) as she raced down the stairs.

"Wait! I drove you!" Raj called after her as chaos broke out in the apartment, yells about the glass and the door and the earthquake.

Ignoring it all, Sheldon bolted after her, using his long legs to propel him as fast as he could, his heart pounding both at the effort and at the fear of losing her. He was in too much of a rush to question why the thought terrified him so. The royal blue sweater flashed in front of him as he sped down the stairs, as though she was suddenly slowing, and, then, in the foyer, just before they reached the front door, he stretched his arm out and grabbed her wrist, catching her at the same time he called, "Dr. Fowler! I mean, Amy! Wait!"

Then he froze. Literally.

Under her sweater, beneath his hand, was something harder than iron and colder than the Arctic.

His body reeled back even as his hand stayed clinched on her frozen wrist, not just in surprise at the feeling but also from the dawning of how unbelievably obtuse he'd been. Those green eyes that she tried to hide behind the tinted goggles, the throaty voice she tried to muffle with the mask, the way she covered her face with her hair and scurried past him in the lunch room, the scent she tried to camouflage with beef stew and formaldehyde . . .

"It's you! You're her!" he exclaimed, stepping closer to inspect Dr. Fowler's ever-widening eyes. _Her_ eyes. "You're Wonder Amy!"

 _To be continued . . ._

* * *

 ** _:-0_**

 ** _I know I tortured you all for four and half chapters before Sheldon realized the truth, but I just couldn't resist playing with the obvious-but-somehow-unrecognizable-secret-identity motif; it's too classic for a superhero story. However, I also knew that Sheldon, as our resident genius, would figure it out before the end of the story._**

 ** _Thank you in advance for your reviews!_**


	6. Chapter 6

. . .

* * *

 **THE WONDER AMY PARADOX**

 **Chapter Six**

* * *

"Let me go!" Amy - Dr. Fowler and Wonder Amy! the same person! - cried. "You're crazy!"

"I assure you that was ruled out in my childhood." Sheldon tugged her wrist upward, just enough to draw her attention to it. She didn't stop him or struggle. "These are your bracelets!"

"Leave me alone!" Still she didn't fight him, and it occurred to Sheldon that was on purpose. If she fought, she would surely win given her superhuman strength and that would only prove his point. Just as she'd purposely slowed on the stairs, realizing her error after she'd broken the door. It was her anger that caused the mini-earthquake, not a shift in the tectonic plates.

"You even have the same name!"

"Amy was the sixth most popular female baby name in 1981. That proves nothing!"

"You both wear glasses."

"Over forty percent of the population is myopic and that number is growing."

"But only two percent of the population has green eyes."

"There are 3.98 million people in Los Angeles. That still means they are almost 80,000 of us with green eyes."

It was neither the time nor place for such a thought, but Sheldon was almost distracted by the spark in those green eyes as Amy quickly spouted off such facts. The tension was thick around them and yet he couldn't help being enchanted by her intelligence. He begrudgingly admitted to himself such tidbits of minutiae were not helpful to him, that she was just as knowledgeable as he was in such trivia.

"Why did you hide your face from me that day in your lab?"

"I was following OSHA protocol for a hazardous chemical spill."

"That you spilled on purpose. I'm correct, aren't I?" There was no answer, just a look of defiance. "Okay, then, why did you run into me with your beef stew when I said I thought I smelled Wonder Amy? I may have considered that slop a hazardous chemical, but OSHA did not."

"I told you just like I told Mrs. Davis, that was an accident!"

"No, it wasn't. You ran into _me_. I never moved. And you almost broke my hand with your superhuman strength! Just like you broke that door upstairs."

"Obviously shoddy construction!"

Sheldon was done arguing over details and he took a deep breath. "I won't tell anyone who you really are, if that's what you're worried about."

"You have nothing to tell because it's not true. You're seeing things that aren't there," she said, her voice full of fight.

"Like that you always wear a long skirt to hide your other? That you wear multiple layers of clothing even in southern California to hide your armor?" Sheldon asked.

"You have no idea what you're talking about. You and your - friend - this was a trap! You're both so obsessed with superheroes and Wonder Amy and those stupid monkeys that you're making things up to fit your fantasies!" Her anger was boiling up again.

"I'm not making anything up! I'm using superior intelligence to follow a logical explanation for many factors. You're Wonder Amy, and you've come to my apartment and we've had coitus. Three times."

"Don't be disgusting!"

"I'm not. It wasn't disgusting. It was . . ." Words left him.

"It's not a logical explanation at all. If I were really Wonder Amy, why would I work, why would I be a scientist?" she asked. "I could live off my royalties."

"Because you love science," Sheldon said. "It was obvious upstairs when you spoke about your theories. And I saw you on _StarTalk_. You more than held your own with Neil deGrasse Tyson. Thor looked like a bumbling fool when he was on."

"Thor _is_ a bumbling fool."

He snapped his fingers. "Aha! You know him!"

Amy rolled her eyes. "No, I don't. I've seen him on TV, just like you. Thinking a man's only redeeming quality is his hair does not make me a superhero!"

"His hair? Really?" Sheldon's nose wrinkled. "He needs a haircut."

"Stop changing the subject!" Amy stomped her foot. "You're just trying to deflect from your own appalling behavior. You and Rajesh talking about me like I was a piece of meat on a spit, like I was carnival prize that you were fighting each other for and I had no say in the matter."

"That isn't true!" Sheldon sighed. "Very well, yes, it sounded like that was what we were saying -"

"Because you were."

"- but it's not what I meant. I was angry with Raj for bringing you here without my knowledge. I didn't know you were coming and it surprised me; I was unprepared because I didn't know where things stood with us."

"Don't try to lie to me, you wouldn't have told him not to bring me."

"You're right!" Sheldon threw his arm up. "I wouldn't have told him that. I thought maybe we could be friends, after you accepted my apology." Amy made a disbelieving sound with her lips. "But, if he'd asked, I would have insisted that he inform you I'd be present, that he would have made sure you fully understood the situation."

Amy didn't answer, she just stared at him, her eyes burning and smoldering. But not in the sultry way.

"Amy," Sheldon tried again, softening his voice and stepping closer to her, "I'm sorry for what I said to Raj. Truly. I want to be your friend. You have nothing to hide from me. I won't tell anyone who you are. Remember that first night? I told you I would help you if you asked. I mean it."

She turned away, her dark fall of brown hair covering her face. Sheldon counted the seconds by the thumps of his heart. Had his sincere offer been successful?

"Please, please, don't do this," her voice came from behind her hair. This time it was a plea, her voice begging. She turned and looked at him, her eyes genuinely frightened, shining with what must be tears. "You don't know . . . Let me go."

Sheldon sucked in his breath. His hand had become so cold it was numb, and he hadn't even realized he was still grasping her wrist, holding her back. But that wasn't what alarmed him; it was the look on Amy's face. It wasn't defiance any more, it was pain. His words had reached her, but they'd pierced her painfully and he didn't understand why or how. What had happened, to Wonder Amy or to Dr. Fowler, that threatened her so? Was the chance of her secret identity being known by him that damaging?

On their very first night together, Wonder Amy had said, "It is not that I want to make you incapable of lying. It is that I want you to be unwilling to lie to me." It was exactly how he felt now. He had the ultimate power over her and he discovered he no longer wanted it. He wanted Amy to tell the truth of her own free will.

"I didn't mean to hurt you. I never want to hurt you," Sheldon said softly, letting her go. Amy pulled her hand in tight, holding it against her sweater. The Wonder Amy cardigan he'd bought her because, he now understood, his subconscious knew even then. "If there's something you're afraid of, I would -"

They both turned when they heard the sound of numerous footfalls on the stairwell above them, but, by the time Sheldon had looked back, Amy was heading out the front door. He ran after her again as she ran to the corner, the hand blinking at her not to cross the street, and he called, "Amy!"

"Go away!" she turned around yelled, lifting her palm to mimic the traffic signal. "I never want to see you or speak to you again!"

Then she took off, just as the hand turned to solid red, a blur of blue and yellow and brown hair, running as fast as she could, not caring if bystanders saw her godlike speed. A car honked loudly. Sheldon's stomach contracted at the sight such motion and fury retreating from him.

"What happened?" Bernadette's voice called and he turned to see his friends tumbling out of the apartment building.

"She left," he said with shrug.

"Where'd she go? How's she getting home? Did she say anything?" Leonard asked.

Sheldon turned and looked the miles of empty concrete sidewalk in front of him. "She said she never wants to see me again."

* * *

She never came.

Sheldon awoke, cold and cramped, curled up on the floor next to her side of the bed, where he'd intended to sit up all night, watching though the open doorway to the living room, waiting for the very second of her arrival. He didn't know when he fell asleep.

He had been certain she would come. He could see it all clearly in his mind, how she'd show up in her star-spangled skirt, how she'd march up to him, her smile amused and her eyes impressed. Most importantly, she'd be confident and fearless, not the terrified variant from the hallway.

"My, my, Sheldon Cooper," she'd say, her hands on her hips, "aren't you a clever, _clever_ man?"

Wonder Amy - Dr. Fowler - would kiss him, her mouth warm and forgiving. Maybe she would chuckle at his antics and the broken door, and they'd brush away the events in the foyer as merely an overreaction that they'd laugh at in their old age. "Remember that time you got so angry you said you never wanted to see me again? Just because I knew who you were? Wasn't that hilarious?"

He would promise again, just to make it clear, that he'd never tell her secret. He'd explain that even before he ever met her, either version of her, he never intended to expose her. Even before she crushed his laptop with her lasso that day of the picnic. Doomsday would have found his computation useless because it was incorrect. He'd purposely added an error, a simple transposition deep in the programming that rendered it so. If Doomsday hadn't come, if he and his friends had set out to find the location of her lair, it would have taken them to an empty warehouse, where it could be reasonably suggested that Wonder Amy must have moved on to another hiding place.

Because he would never, ever tell, just as he promised, and she would believe him, she would stay that night and all the others. He would call her Amy, just Amy, to avoid confusion. There would be no reason for Dr. Fowler to hide from him anymore, and he could start spending time with her in her cardigans, not just her costume. The real Amy. He'd learn all about her life out of the public eye, they would talk about science and their work and a thousand other things he was certain they would discover they had in common.

And there would be no reason to feel conflicted and guilty with Wonder Amy anymore, because she'd be just Amy, too. He wouldn't be doing anything wrong, cheating on anyone, because it would be just Amy, always just Amy, to challenge his mind during the day and his body in bed at night and, best of all, to constantly challenge his heart with that nameless emotion.

It would be him and it would be her, the woman and the myth, forever.

It was all supposed to happen like that. It was all supposed to start last night.

But Amy never came.

Sheldon sat up and stretched, but he didn't get up. Instead he leaned his head back against her side of the bed. It would always be her side of the bed.

* * *

There was a knock on his office door, and Sheldon looked up from his laptop in surprise. He wasn't expecting anyone. For the last three weeks, he'd done an admirable job of avoiding almost everyone. Other than riding to and from work with Leonard, he'd successfully managed to find excuses to eat lunch in his office or not cross the hall in the evenings or even go see the latest movies with his friends. He couldn't risk seeing Raj there.

"Come," he called.

Leonard's head peeked around the open door. "Can I come in?"

"I just said come, in the fashion of Captain Picard." Leonard nodded and started to walk in. "Wait!" Leonard stopped. "Are you alone?"

It was just like his friends, with Raj, to try and ambush him in some misguided attempt to make Sheldon speak to him.

"Yes, I'm alone," Leonard answered, resuming his walk toward Sheldon's desk and sitting in one of the chairs opposite. Sheldon's eyebrows went up.

"How are you?" Leonard asked.

"Fine."

"No, I mean, _how are you?_ Like with everything, like in your life."

Oh, Lordy. This was some sort of intervention, after all. "Just peachy. Never been better."

"I don't believe you."

"Then why did you ask instead of just continuing with your incorrect assumption?"

Leonard took a deep breath. "Listen, buddy, you can't avoid Raj forever, declining his calls and blocking his texts and sending all his emails to your spam folder."

"Is that a challenge? Because I accept."

"You need to talk to him; he really wants to talk to you."

"Point B does not prove point A. No wonder the Nobel Prize committee isn't breaking down your door." Sheldon wagged his finger.

"He'd been trying to apologize for three weeks now! If you would just talk to him, you'd find out how bad he feels."

"He should apologize to Dr. Fowler."

"He has. Have you?" Leonard asked with a sharp look.

Sheldon grunted. Did the conversation in the foyer of their apartment building, when he outed her as Wonder Amy while holding tight to her Amazonian bracelets, count? He hadn't told anyone her secret, the one she insisted on denying. Shouldn't that count for something?

"He wants to tell you that he isn't interested in dating Dr. Fowler, that he never was," Leonard explained. "That he only invited her that evening for you. He could tell, we all could tell, that you were interested in her. But because you're, um, well, you, he didn't think you'd ever approach her. He thought he was doing you a favor."

"A-plus plan, Koothrappali. Then why did he tell me he was calling dibs on her?"

Leonard shrugged. "He says he got caught up in the argument. You were challenging him and he fought back without thinking about what he was saying or who could hear him. Which, I think, is what happened to you, too, right?" Sheldon grunted again. "Sheldon, even you have to admit that a lot of things got out of control that night. There was that tremor in the middle of everything. And we had to get a brand new door and lockset! We should have believed you when you said she almost broke your hand. What is she, the long lost cousin of The Hulk or something?"

Shaking his head, Sheldon just said, "The Hulk got his powers in a nuclear testing accident. They're not genetic."

How could his friends all be so blind to the obvious? All the clues were there, had been there all along. Even worse, what had taken him so long to figure it out, right when it was too late? He was the genius!

"I agree he should have told you, but his motives were pure," Leonard continued. "And he was right, you know. He still is."

"What do you mean?"

"I've seen the way you looked at her, your eyes following her through the cafeteria; you looked starved for any recognition from her. What is it about her, anyway?"

"She reminds me of someone," Sheldon explained, "like I've seen her before."

"So?" Leonard prodded. "You've said the guy at the gas station on the corner looks like Yoda for years now, and that hasn't got you this upset."

Was he upset? Was it that obvious? "She's also very intelligent; you heard what she said about her work. You know I admire that level of scholarly dedication."

Leonard just kept looking at him, his eyes questioning.

"Fine," Sheldon whispered, looking down at his desk. "I can't explain her and that intrigues me. I need to understand her. She's a puzzle. I need to solve her."

"What does that mean?" Leonard asked. "Did something happen between the two of you? In her lab or after you chased her down the street?"

Sheldon got up and turned around to look out his office window. He was sorely tempted to tell Leonard everything. That he'd already solved the puzzle. About Wonder Amy at night, admitting his interest in Dr. Fowler during the day, about the conversation with Amy in the hallway and the implications of it. The heartache of the night he'd stayed up waiting for her, waiting to make it all right, and how she never came.

He would make it clear to Leonard that it wasn't about the sex, not anymore. While Sheldon had been surprised at how athletic and enjoyable he found his physical interactions with WonderAmy, that's not what he craved from her now. Or at least not yet. First he wanted to get to know her, to be her friend. For the first time in his life, he wanted to hold someone's hand at the movies and read silently next to her in the evenings and make her breakfast. He wanted there to be in-jokes and shared references. He never wanted her to look frightened again.

Longing to lift the burden from his chest, Sheldon wanted to tell Leonard how he had ruined both halves of a relationship that wasn't even whole yet, and now it was clear that he'd never see either incarnation of Amy again. He wanted to tell Leonard what hurt the most.

For the first time in his life, Sheldon wouldn't have minded if Leonard had awkwardly put his arm around him in some semblance of a man hug and repeated overused and useless platitudes at him. Any small gesture to try and soothe the endless ache. Sheldon just wanted to be understood, the way he understood Amy when she asked him to hold her, the way he felt understood when he kissed her forehead.

However, he knew Leonard's kind-hearted gesture wouldn't be nearly the same. And it would break his promise to her, even if she hadn't accepted or even admitted she needed that oath. The thing was Leonard probably wouldn't believe him, anyway. Because Sheldon had told him already, after that first night, and Leonard had blown him off.

"I can't," Sheldon whispered. Then he turned and looked at his best friend and tried to smile, but it was a limp, sad thing. "But I appreciate you checking on me."

Leonard smiled back. "If you change your mind, you know where I am. Anytime, okay?"

Sheldon nodded, and Leonard got up to leave. Watching him turn to go, Sheldon made a decision. Maybe Leonard was correct. Maybe he needed to forget everything about Wonder Amy and Dr. Fowler, forget they were the same person. He needed to go back to his old life, the one he was content with, and continue on his course as the greatest scientific mind of his generation.

Just as Leonard reached for the doorknob, Sheldon called, "Maybe I'll come over for video games tonight?"

"We'd all like that very much." Leonard turned with a grin, pulling the office door open, and then they both jumped when Kripke stumbled in. "Barry? Where'd you come from?"

"Were you eavesdropping?" Sheldon yelled. What had he heard?

"God, no! I have better things to with my time then eavesdrop on the great love affair that is Shelnard. I just came to rub Cooper's nose in my good fortune. Leonard's presence is a bonus."

"What good fortune?" Leonard asked.

"You're looking at the newest member of the Metamonkey Task Force. That new neurobiologist, Dr. Amy Fowler, she asked for me by name. Not Cooper, you sucker, she wanted me! Can I get a high-five?"

Kripke put his hand up for Leonard's, but Leonard turned with his bushy eyebrows pinched together to look at Sheldon's shocked face.

 _To be continued . . ._

* * *

 ** _Thank you for all your wonderful reviews!_**


	7. Chapter 7

. . .

* * *

 **THE WONDER AMY PARADOX**

 **Chapter Seven**

* * *

"What?!" Leonard and Sheldon said at the same time. Sheldon walked quickly around his desk to stand by his friend.

"You heard me," Kripke said, "there are two research theoretical physicists to choose from, and Dr. Fowler choose _me_. Not you, loser."

"Why, you -"

Leonard put his arms out to grip Sheldon and pull him back. "Back up, Barry. What are you talking about? Metamonkey Task Force?"

"The government has formed a new investigative panel to determine what caused those mutant lab monkeys at UCLA. You know, Monkeygate. They assigned Dr. Fowler as the scientific consultant to see if it was a neurological mutation, especially since it happened in the neurobiology lab," he explained.

"Why haven't we heard anything about this?" Sheldon asked, his mind whirling at all this sudden news. "That happened over six months ago."

"Apparently the government has some new info or something. I'll find out when I get my full briefing, after my clearance goes through. Some big wig is coming tomorrow to push it through. It's being rushed," Kripke explained. "It's top secret, all hush-hush. We're not even having this conversation."

"Um, we really shouldn't be having this conversation if it's classified," Leonard said.

Sheldon shook his head. "But I already have clearance from our military project. Why would they wait even one extra day on you if the timing is so important?"

"I guess because Dr. Fowler wants me. I don't really care, I just want make you feel worthless for being passed over," Kripke said. "It's not like I'm going to tell you what we discover. You know, Dr. Fowler and me. Working all those late nights, alone in a lab."

"This doesn't make any sense." Sheldon put his hand up to his head, trying to block out the images Kripke put there. "Why would an investigation into the neurological causes of mutated monkeys require a theoretical physicist?"

"Apparently, Dr. Fowler's working theory is that it was a change on the molecular level. She needs a physicist, and she wanted a theoretical physicist, someone used to thinking up big, new ideas, someone used to thinking outside the box. In other words, me!"

"You don't even know you're in a box, let alone being able to find your way out it!" Sheldon snapped at him. As distasteful as the idea of Kripke putting moves on Amy (his Amy!) was, it rankled even more that she'd asked for Kripke, that she'd allowed him to believe that he was smarter than Sheldon.

"Awww, is Cooper jealous?" Kripke laughed. "Then my work here is done!" And then he sauntered out of the office.

Leonard and Sheldon turned to look at each other. "I don't understand," Sheldon said. "I thought Dr. Fowler had higher scientific principles than that. Why wouldn't she ask for the best of the best?"

"I'm sorry," Leonard said. "I know you're disappointed, but maybe it _is_ for the best. Things between you and Amy didn't end well, right? It would probably only be awkward and difficult to work together with that kind of tension. Or she thought you'd say no."

"But he's an idiot and a monster!" Sheldon stepped quickly over to his desk, rotating his laptop to find what he was looking for.

"What are you doing?"

"Sending Kripke that file on sexual harassment. You heard what he said. I'm sending it with a read receipt so he can't claim he didn't know. Do you think I should email Amy, too? Warn her?"

Leonard stepped closer. "I think you should stay out of it. Kripke is all talk, he just says that crap to get to you. Don't let him know it does. Just let it go. If you don't see her and you don't think about it, it will help you get over it faster. Concentrate on your work here, come up with something outstanding to overshadow Kripke, and come and play video games with us tonight."

Sheldon stood back up and nodded. "Very well."

With a pat on his shoulder, Leonard left. Sheldon sighed into the silence, walking back to his chair, sitting down and drumming his fingers on the top of his desk. His screen saver had come up, and there was Wonder Amy's _Time Magazine_ cover smirking provocatively back at him, taunting him. Sheldon reached up and slammed the laptop lid shut with a growl. He knew Leonard meant well, that Leonard genuinely believed what he said, that he was just trying to help.

But what Leonard didn't understand was that for all his other strengths, Sheldon wasn't capable of forgetting anything. He also wasn't any good at getting over Amy. He wasn't even sure he wanted to be.

* * *

"Sheldon."

"Raj."

They stood facing each other in Leonard's living room, Howard and Leonard sitting and watching them.

"Listen, dude, about Amy. I wasn't trying to -"

"I know, Leonard told me," Sheldon interrupted him. The last person he wanted to talk about this evening was Amy. Correction, the last person he wanted to talk about was Barry Kripke with Amy.

"Good. I just want you to know that I'm sorry for everything. She's not talking to me, either, if it makes you feel any better. I only know she got my flowers because she had to sign for the delivery."

Sheldon frowned. Did Raj really think someone of Amy's independence, intelligence, and power would be swayed by something as trite as a bouquet of flowers? And why hadn't he thought of it first?

"Apology accepted."

"Cool. Let's play!"

He never would have admitted it, but Sheldon missed that stupid face with its overlarge smile. "Very well. But I get to pick the game because you've all been playing three weeks without me."

* * *

He wasn't able to concentrate. Sheldon tried to blame it on the comic book. Normally he loved reading about the latest battles and triumphs of all the metahumans, and he and his friends went to Stuart's store every week to get the latest installments of the news. Since most metahumans were too fast for cameras and their battles were so grand in scope, the best way to illustrate their most recent actions were to paint them. Newspapers and tabloids tried, and sometimes they were able to capture a photograph of when the superheroes were mostly still, like that picture of Wonder Amy holding her ground, digging in her heels, to stop the city bus from striking those kittens. But, for the most part, comic books had gone from science fiction to science fact.

Although he was appreciative of Leonard's kindness in buying him a couple of issues he missed while he avoided outings that would involve seeing Raj, Sheldon shut the comic with a sigh. He didn't dislike Supergirl, per se, but she was too innocent and perky for his tastes. Sheldon wanted a female superhero that was mysterious and sly, one with confidence in spades, one that was sure of her place in the world, not one that stood in her cousin's shadow, not a superheroine that wore her heart on her cape. How did one fight crime in a cape, anyway? What he wanted was a superhero that he had to figure out, one that was cryptic yet beguiling. Sheldon wanted a superhero that was a woman, not a girl.

After setting the comic on his end table, Sheldon reached for the pull of his bedside lamp and screamed. "Acckkkk!"

Her reflection was in the black face of his alarm clock and he swiveled his head. Wonder Amy was there, standing at attention, at the foot of his bed. She was literally the last person he thought he'd see again. Or, rather, this version of her. At least there was the chance he might pass the Dr. Fowler version in the cafeteria once he starting eating there again.

"How _do_ you do that?" he asked, his heart resuming its beat.

"I cannot say."

Sheldon frowned. What she meant was that she wouldn't say. Why did she have to be so cryptic and beguiling? "I didn't think you'd come again."

"You sound displeased."

Was he displeased? "Very well, yes, I am. You said you never wanted to see me again and then you come breaking and entering into my apartment whenever it suits you."

Amy stepped closer, next to the bed. "I broke nothing."

Sheldon looked up at her. Was she really going to play that game, that she wasn't Dr. Fowler, too? Now that he looked at her carefully, he couldn't fathom how he'd ever been so blind. They were the same person! Amy didn't turn her face or try to hide behind her hair; instead, she stared back at him, her eyes defiant behind the exact same pair of spectacles, daring him to say it again, daring him to say what he knew.

But he was just too tired to play her games anymore.

He'd spent three weeks trying unsuccessfully to get over the hope of her - both sides of her - and then he learned she couldn't even put their personal differences aside for the sake of science.

"Go away. I've had a rotten day. I'm not in the mood." He reached for the pull of his lamp again, trying to make a point, but Amy reached out and stilled his hand. Gently this time - no risk of bruised knuckles.

"Will you tell me about it?"

Sheldon rubbed his forehead and sighed. Then, making a decision, he pulled himself up straighter in bed. "Amy, I _know_ you're Dr. Fowler. I know Dr. Fowler is you, Wonder Amy. I'm a genius, remember? I understand if you need it to be a secret from the masses, but I figured it out all on my own. If you can't admit that, if you can't walk in that door, or however it is you get into my apartment, as Dr. Fowler then you're not welcome here anymore. I cannot allow myself to be used for your amusement."

Her shoulders fell as she dropped his hand. Sheldon had to close his eyes and then look away. It had felt good, while he was saying it, to get it off his chest, to stand up for himself and what he wanted. No, what he needed. But now it hurt all over again. She was just going to leave him all over again.

"Is that really what you think I was doing?" she whispered.

"Yes!" He turned sharply back to look at her. "What are your intentions, Amy? Just to have your way with me whenever you feel like, regardless of what I want?"

"Sheldon." And then she did something amazing. Wonder Amy got down on her knees, next to his bed, gripping the edge of the comforter, and looked up at him, her eyes soft and sad. "I admit I didn't know what my intentions were that first night. I don't even know what my intentions were that day in the park. I've - I've admired you from afar for months, first just reading your articles in professional journals and then at work in the cafeteria line -" Sheldon sucked in his breath at her admission and she smiled at that.

"Yes, I'm Dr. Fowler. Of course you were correct. I always knew you, of all people, would figure it out. I apologize for my behavior the night I came with Rajesh. I was so angry at you and what you were saying, I just became defensive. I've had so many close calls since I came here, so many times I had to fight or run, that it just came naturally to me. I shouldn't have lied to you. Can you ever forgive me?"

"Maybe," Sheldon mumbled, not yet ready to concede everything to her, at least not until he received a satisfactory answer to all his questions. "I said some pretty terrible things, too."

"Yes, you did." She took a deep breath. "But you asked about my intentions. In the park, it was a harmless flirtation, that kiss, but I couldn't stop thinking about, watching the video online. So, one night, I was . . . unhappy, and I decided to come to you, to cheer myself up, I guess. I didn't expect it to feel the way it did."

"Physically?" Sheldon asked.

Amy's lips turned up slightly. "Well, that, too. But there was moment, wasn't there, when it was far more than physical? And then, when you said you'd hold my bracelets if they were too heavy . . ." Amy closed her eyes.

Sheldon studied her for a moment, like that, with her eyes closed. She looked like she was praying, the fervent faith that if she just believed in something hard enough it would be true. Was she - was she praying for his forgiveness?

"I need time," he said. Her emerald eyes reopened. "I don't know if that moment was enough to, to . . ." He shrugged. "To sustain me. To sustain this."

"Will you at least unburden yourself about your day? Will you tell me why it was rotten?"

"I don't think you really want me to."

"I do. I'll sit here and I'll listen. That's all."

It was so patently absurd that Sheldon didn't know how to react.

"Please, Sheldon."

He looked down at his lap. Why did her voice have to be so sincere? And her eyes, normally so daunting, so kind? The thing was, he _did_ want to talk to her about it. Earlier, he'd tried to explain it to Leonard, but Leonard didn't understand. Sheldon couldn't really blame him for that, since Sheldon had to parse his words so carefully to prevent sharing her secret. And, although seeing his friends again for the frivolous fun of video games had lightened his heart temporarily while they were together, he could not discuss it with them, either. Howard would only make fun of him and Raj never had the government clearance to even mention the Task Force around him.

But Sheldon didn't know if this would be the last time he'd ever talk to Amy and he wanted to explain this to her.

"Very well," he said softly.

Amy stood up and walked around the bed, crawling up on her side - still her side! - but she didn't get under the covers or remove any of her clothes. Instead, she tucked her booted legs under her skirt, smoothing it down to cover her knees. "I'm ready."

"I found out from Kripke today that you asked him to be on the Metamonkey Task Force with you." He stopped when he saw her eyes widen. So she didn't know that he knew about Kripke. For a second, it reminded him of her look in the foyer that night. What would she do now? Fly into another rage, break another door, run away?

"He came and told me," he explained. "He just stormed right into my office while I was having a private conversation with Leonard and spilled the beans to both of us. So much for classified information. Anyway, congratulations, you'll finally get to make a name for yourself in metahuman studies, which in turn would get you one step closer to obtaining both funding and access to metahumans for your dream project."

Her brow furrowing, Amy asked, "You're angry about my success?"

"No." He shook his head, chastised. "I'm angry about Kripke. He is a very poor substitute for me."

"You wanted the job?"

"Yes! I should have gotten the job! I'm more intelligent and more imaginative. I have a stronger work ethic. I'm more reliable. I'm better behaved in general. Plus, I already have the required government clearance. I am, in all ways, the superior choice." There, he'd said it. It was too late, but it was his argument.

"You only wanted the job because you're superior?"

"I should have _gotten_ the job because I am superior." He paused. "But, no, it's not why I wanted the job."

"Why then?"

Another deep sigh. "I wanted the job because I wanted to work with you. As Dr. Fowler, that is."

Amy tilted her head. She didn't ask, although her face was open and inquisitive.

"I wanted to prove to you that I'm good enough," he said, his voice small with this confession.

"Is that all?" Amy asked. "You wanted to work with me just to prove something about yourself?"

"No!" Sheldon said quickly. "Not entirely. It _is_ important to me that you know I'm your intellectual equal, but I _am_ interested in your work. Although, since we're being _honest_ -" he lowered his chin to look at her out of the top of his eyes, purposely overemphasizing the word "- I am disappointed in you. I thought you had higher scientific ideals than that. I know we had that . . . disagreement in the hallway about Wonder Amy, and Leonard explained why you may not chose to work with me after that. But I thought you could have put your personal concerns aside for the greater good, that the quality and value of your scientific conclusions would be of paramount importance. I know that I could."

She broke eye contact and looked down at her skirt, although she didn't speak. He knew he wasn't good at reading body language and facial expressions, and he worried that he had offended her again, questioning her principles like that. Not that he didn't mean it, exactly; he did doubt her principles. Rather, it was just that now that they were actually talking, he realized it didn't want it to end this way.

"You talked about your professional goals that night, across the hall, about your ideal study," he continued, softening his tone, "and you were so passionate about it. Your whole face lit up, you were enchanted with the dream of discovery. I have great respect for that."

"You have the same interest?"

"Not exactly the same, but there is overlap. Mostly, though, I wanted to get to know you better."

"Why?"

"Because, Amy, you intrigue me. I know we've only spoken a few times, but I'm certain that we'd have many things in common. You're . . . " he shrugged. It was difficult to explain, even here and now. Even more difficult than he predicted, saying all this to her face.

"But Dr. Fowler is just my secret identity. She's not a superhero," Amy said. "She doesn't fly or have an invisible jet. People don't look up to her or know her name." She looked down at her skirt, smoothing it again. "What if that Amy doesn't have any friends? Or is lonely? What about that is interesting?"

Sheldon considered this and how to answer it. "That does not make her less interesting to me, it does not make her less of person. It does not make her less of a scientist."

"It's just all about the science then?" Amy looked back up and asked.

"No. I _am_ interested in your work as a scientist. I'm a scientist, too, you know, and I want to know if you love your work as much as I do. I hope you do. I think you do; it's one of the things I imagine we have in common. You were so - so beautiful when you spoke about your ultimate ambition." He stopped and licked his lips, debating how to explain this to her, knowing that the best way was the riskiest way. Had he already confessed too much? Revealed too much of how felt? "I meant what I said that day in the lab, when you tried to hide your face from me. I liked you best when you were just Amy. The Amy without the bracelets, the Amy who slept next to me. I want to discover what parts of Dr. Fowler make her just Amy, too, the Amy without the lab coat."

"I'm not sure I understand."

"Amy," he leaned closer to her, "I want to be your friend."

"Aren't we friends already?"

"I don't know," Sheldon answered honestly. "Sometimes my other friends talk about friends with benefits, in which benefits is a euphemism for coitus. But there are times I feel like we only have benefits." He inched his hand nearer to the one of hers that was resting on the comforter, but he did not touch it. "I want a relationship reboot."

Her brow crinkled. "Relationship reboot?"

"Yes. Or perhaps a completely different operating system. I want to be friends with Dr. Fowler."

Amy lips shifted first one way and then the other, but she did not speak for a long time. Then, at last, she whispered, "What if I'm boring as Dr. Fowler? What if I have nothing to add to the conversation? I'm used to speaking with my body as Wonder Amy. Dr. Fowler is used to hiding."

Sheldon let his hand move forward and set it gently on her own. It was much smaller than his and his palm covered it completely, the pad of his middle finger resting on her cold bracelet. "I doubt if that is true. You only say that because people - other people with lesser minds - only hear your body. But I listen to your voice, your thoughts. You were brilliant on _StarTalk_ , and your interviews are always enlightening. That's Dr. Fowler speaking, isn't it? I don't want Dr. Fowler to ever feel like she has to hide from me. I want to know every dream of discovery that lights up your face. I want more with you, but only if you are willing to give it. As Dr. Fowler."

Turning her hand under his, she curled her fingers upward, tucking it tighter within his protection. "I understand."

Time pulled and stretched around them, Sheldon covering her hand and Amy looking down at it while he watched her eyelashes fan against her cheeks. Why could it have not been this way in the hallway? Calm and thoughtful, even if melancholy and uncertain. But at least he felt at peace with what he'd said.

He wanted Amy, just Amy, first. Her friendship, her conversation, her intelligence. The flirty skirt and adventurous positions could wait.

"You don't ever want to see Wonder Amy again?" she finally asked, still not looking up.

Sheldon considered this. "I understand she's a part of you. But I'm saying I want to get know the other half first. I have a feeling Wonder Amy won't stay silent forever." He paused. "You are always welcome here to sleep, to take off your Wonder Amy bracelets and rest, anytime you like. You are always welcome here to talk, like this. As Dr. Fowler. But I'm not ready to be intimate again. If you choose not to return, I respect your wishes."

There was another lengthy pause, and he studied her eyelashes, feeling the false fragility of her hand beneath his. Or maybe it wasn't false after all. Maybe Wonder Amy was just the armor Dr. Fowler wore to protect her delicate soul and her luminous mind. Sheldon thought of that first night and the third, those two flashes of feeling that passed between, when he was convinced he'd seen just Amy beyond the persona she'd created for herself. Sheldon's arms ached to hold her again, in the chaste manner of complete rest. He could wait one more morning to determine whether it would be the end of this entanglement or the beginning of new phase. "You can sleep here tonight, if you like, even if you don't want to answer me right now."

But Amy shook her head as she looked up. "I can't stay. I have something I must do."

"Tonight?" Sheldon asked, disappointed. "Oh, is it saving someone? Stopping a crime? How do you know?"

"No, it's not that." It was her only answer. Her hand slipped away, and Wonder Amy got off the bed. "But it has to be tonight. Tomorrow will be too late."

She marched to his bedroom door, and then she turned back, an echo of the very first time he'd seen her in person, a hand on her blue skirt, a tousle of her hair, the swell of her bosom under her breastplate. But her eyes were completely different.

"Goodbye, Sheldon."

With that, Amy was gone. Again and possibly forever.

 _To be continued . . ._

* * *

 _ **The newspaper photo referenced above is based on fanart by AnicezShamy (on Instagram) for The Wonder Amy Intervention. I've shared it on my Instagram feed [handle: aprilinparisfanfic] if you missed it the first time. Enjoy!**_

 ** _Sheldon's screensaver is also based on fanart for that project by miss. sh.c (also on Instagram), but I'll be sharing it at a later date._**

 _ **Thank you for your reviews!**_


	8. Chapter 8

. . .

* * *

 **THE WONDER AMY PARADOX**

 **Chapter Eight**

* * *

"Oh my God, you guys!" Howard ran up to their table in the cafeteria, having entirely skipped the line to rush toward them. "You won't believe what's happened to Kripke!"

"Kripke?" Sheldon looked up sharply.

"He has, I am _not_ making this up, the Themysciran flu! He woke up with the rash! He has to be quarantined at home for at least three weeks!"

Leonard and Raj laughed at Howard's news. "Imagine the smell when they finally crack open that door!" Raj said between cackles.

"And imagine him with those pustules!" Leonard snickered.

"Please don't call it the Themysciran flu," Sheldon said. "That's a misnomer and you know it. It's properly called H5V17. There's no proof it came from Wonder Amy's home. That island may be fictitious, too, for all we know."

The virus in question had been named such by the public because the first cases were reported on the same day as one of Wonder Amy's astounding feats of public bravery, a massive aerial battle with The Riddler. No one was willing to believe the new illness, which caused large purple hives on the skin and painless but nearly constant and extremely malodorous flatulence, was a coincidence. Urban legend had it that there were spores of it Wonder Amy's clothes or caught in her lasso that had become airborne in the fight over Los Angeles, although there was not yet any scientific proof of that.

"Why aren't you hysterical at this news?" Leonard asked. "Kripke's sick in the most embarrassing way!"

"I don't like blaming Wonder Amy for it," Sheldon muttered. And he didn't. It bothered him that she was being accused of something without any scientific proof. Mostly it bothered him that he still felt like protecting her, especially after she'd sat on his bed last night and listened. Truly listened. And curled her hand beneath his in a manner that may not have been agreement with his terms but felt very close to it.

"Why not?" Raj asked. "Everyone else does. Is it because of your kissy-face with her at the picnic?" He and Howard started making juvenile kissing noises at him.

"Don't be gauche," Sheldon countered.

"Come on," Howard said. "It's harmless fun. So Kripke'll spend a few weeks at home in shame, watching Netflix, but it doesn't hurt him."

That was true. Although H5V17 was very unpleasant and lasted at least two weeks, it was painless, and there'd been no reported sequela. The only reason the Centers for Disease Control had worked so hard to eradicate it was because people were trying everything to get it so that they could have weeks off of work. It was a matter of national productivity. Sheldon's brow furrowed as his shoulders straightened. Wait a minute . . .

"Wait a minute," Raj asked, "how did he even get it? The only known remaining sample is under lock and key at the CDC in Atlanta."

"Was there a break-in?" Howard pulled out his phone and scrolled for a few seconds. "Nope. The CDC just released a press announcement that they're sending a team. They say their sample is fully accounted for. Apparently, early reports are that the victim -" Howard made air quotes around the word "- slept with his window open, and they're going to sample all the plants on the ground outside his window to see if the source is growing there."

"Isn't Kripke's apartment on the fifth floor?" Leonard asked, looking at Sheldon. "Remember when we went for that lame department party?"

"It was so lame I didn't go," Sheldon reminded him.

"Oh, yeah. But still, wouldn't everyone else in his building have it, too? I'm certain he didn't have a balcony with potted plants on it. What about all those people on the lower floors, closer to the plants?"

Sheldon shrugged. Leonard was correct, they would. Unless a spore had landed directly on Kripke's windowsill, five stories in the air. Maybe, if his apartment didn't have screens, someone had even crept silently into his bedroom in the dead of night and sat it on his pillowcase. Someone who said she had something to do.

Leonard leaned closer and lowered his voice so that he wouldn't be heard over the fart jokes Raj and Howard were trading back and forth. "What do you think this means for the Task Force? He told us they wanted to get started right away. This will wreck the schedule."

His throat was so filled with suspicion and hope, Sheldon didn't dare answer.

* * *

He didn't have to wait long. The knock came on his office door at 1:13 p.m. that afternoon.

"Come."

"Dr. Cooper," Mrs. Davis said after she opened it. "May I interrupt?"

Sheldon looked up at her from his desk. "If you couldn't, I wouldn't have told you to come in."

"Uh, yes." She plastered an uncomfortable smile on her face. "I wanted to introduce you the Air Force's Associate Director of Metahuman Regulations, Major General Riley Bloom." She turned and pointed to the man in a military uniform that entered behind her.

"Pleased to meet you, Dr. Cooper," the tall, skinny man said, extending his hand over the desk.

"I don't shake the hands of strangers," Sheldon said. "I only engage in touching with people I have deemed worthy of long-term relationships."

"I see." He sat down in the chair opposite the desk without asking. "Colonel Richard Williams informs me you completed your work for him on the guidance system on schedule."

"Correction. I completed my stellar work far ahead of schedule."

"Yes. Well, I'll be blunt. You may have heard that Dr. Kripke has contracted an unfortunate illness. But he was slated to begin work on a new classified project as soon as possible. It's called the Metamonkey Task Force and its purpose is to investigate the incident at UCLA several months ago. We're eager to get underway, everything is in order, and it's been too long already, so we've decided to start without him." Major Bloom stopped speaking and Sheldon raised an eyebrow at him. He already knew all of this, of course, but since the project was classified he thought it was best not to reveal that. "We're approaching the problem from various angles. The one with the most promise is the new technology our forensic science team - we have the best minds from both Wayne Enterprises and S.T.A.R. Labs working together - have developed to obtain fingerprints and DNA that were previously thought lost because the monkeys spilled acid all over the lab. But we also want to learn what caused the monkeys to mutate in the first place."

"That's where you come in," Mrs. Davis said from where she was still standing.

"How can I be of help?" Sheldon asked.

"A Dr. Fowler here at Caltech is the lead scientist on that specific line of query. For reasons that baffle me, she feels that a theoretical physicist is needed," Major Bloom explained. "Now that Dr. Kripke cannot be a part of the Task Force, we need another theoretical physicist. We don't want to spend the time credentialing someone new, and we feel the work would go more smoothly if the physicist already worked in close proximity to Dr. Fowler. In other words, we want you on the Task Force."

"Hmmmmm." Sheldon put a finger up to his lips and pretended to weigh the offer. "It would be full time?"

Major Bloom and Mrs. Davis nodded in unison. "Until the objective is met or the Task Force is disbanded," Major Bloom added.

"Dr. Fowler is the lead scientist? I'd be reporting to her? We wouldn't be equals?"

"No, you'd work under her direction."

Sheldon frowned slightly. He hadn't considered that; Kripke had made it sound like they'd be partners, not that he'd be taking orders. Of course, it was like Kripke to inflate his own importance.

Moving his eyes away from Major Bloom, Sheldon looked directly at Mrs. Davis. "Does Dr. Fowler know? Has she agreed? I won't accept without her approval."

"Dr. Fowler is willing to do whatever it takes to serve her country," Major Bloom volunteered even though he hadn't been asked.

But Mrs. Davis nodded and that was all Sheldon cared about. "Yes, she's agreed to work with you."

After letting the pause go on just long enough to seem dramatic, Sheldon nodded and stood. "Very well. When do we start?"

* * *

Except there was a problem. Although Amy had come willingly to him last night, admitted the truth, and even listened kindly to his woes, publicly Dr. Fowler was still avoiding him and not speaking to him. Sheldon had watched out for her in the cafeteria, but she never came. Amy never said last night whether she accepted his new terms or not.

And she was still Wonder Amy, of course, and she had been terrified when he'd discovered her secret. Sheldon had seen in her eyes in the hallway, the absolute fear. She claimed it was her instinctual fight-or-flight response but the memory of that look still unsettled him.

The panic in her eyes is what kept him from pushing too hard last night and it was what would have kept him from taking this assignment. If either Major Bloom or Mrs. Davis had as much as hinted that Amy was even slightly averse to his appointment, he would have refused. But Mrs. Davis said she agreed, so he accepted. And why would she refuse? He was the best, the brightest.

But, as the afternoon wore on, Sheldon found his mind turning over the events in the hallway, that look of extreme alarm, that panicked run down the street, the way she'd yelled at him from the curb before zooming away. Had Amy been averse to his appointment? The way Major Bloom had referenced her patriotic duty made him wonder if she'd acquiesced against her will.

On the other hand, an eradicated microbe that rumor had it came from Wonder Amy's home island had somehow found its way into Barry Kripke's fifth-floor apartment last night.

His chair becoming ever more uncomfortable, Sheldon finally stood and shut his office door behind him. There was only one way to find out for sure.

The walk was not long and it felt good to stretch his legs. For the second time, he located her lab, and, for the second time he hesitated outside of it, studying her nameplate.

 **A. F. Fowler, Ph.D., Neurobiology**

It occurred to him why it had caught his eye the first time he came. Because her full name wasn't listed. His nameplate said **Sheldon Cooper, Ph.D., Theoretical Physics**. And Leonard's said Leonard, and Raj's said Rajesh. Why hide the Amy, if it really was just the harmless sixth-most popular female baby name the year she was born?

Knock, knock, knock. "Dr. Fowler."  
Knock, knock, knock. "Dr. Fowler."  
Knock, knock, knock. "Dr. Fowler."

"Come in."

Nothing was spilled this time. No masks or goggles were donned. Amy sat at the closest lab table, syringing up some kind of liquid.

"I hope I'm not disturbing your work," Sheldon said.

"You're not," Amy replied. "I was expecting you."

"Oh. Of course. You know about Kripke."

"Yes." She continued to work without turning toward him.

Sheldon shuffled his feet. "He contracted H5V17."

"I heard."

"The current theory is it was from a plant outside his window. But doesn't it seem unlikely that a random plant would suddenly contain a microbe eradicated by the CDC?"

"It does strain credulity."

"Especially when you consider his bedroom window is five stories above those plants. And there's no balcony."

"Five stories? How interesting."

"Am - Dr. Fowler." Sheldon stepped closer and she finally turned to look at him. "I need to ask you something. About work," he rushed out the last two words.

"Okay." Amy stood up, removing her gloves as she did.

"Were you in any way coerced into accepting my presence on your Task Force? Because I won't take the job if you were. I'm a civilian, I don't have to take orders."

There was a pause while Amy looked up at him, and he thought her face relaxed. "No, I wasn't coerced. I, too, am not the type of person to take orders."

"That makes sense. You really seem to enjoy giving them when you're Won - Mmmccccc!"

Amy's hand slapped across his mouth so quickly he almost fell backwards. Again. Really, she needed to watch that strength of hers! Was that the answer to his question? Did she so thoroughly reject his proposal that she felt the need to resort to workplace violence to make her point?

But then she put her free finger over her lips, the international symbol to be quiet. She held it there until Sheldon nodded. Only then did she step away and grab a notepad from her desk, writing something and holding it up for him.

 **I think my lab is wiretapped. The Air Force is listening.**

"Really?" Sheldon asked. What if the gyroscope lab had been bugged? He'd cried in Leonard's arms in there!

Amy pressed her hand back to his mouth and shook her head. Then she pulled it away to scribble the paper again.

 **Talk to me like Dr. Fowler. Like that's the only way you know me. Convince them we've never talked about the Task Force before.**

Sheldon cleared his throat. What would he say to Dr. Fowler that hadn't been said to Amy last night? "Um, oh, yes. I'm glad to hear it. That you weren't coerced. I mean, what was I thinking? The government would never do a single shady thing. Ever. Our national bird should be an angel. And the Pope should canonize -"

Amy waved her arms wildly until he stopped, and then she scribbled **Too much!**

"Okay." He could do this. Pretend she was only Dr. Fowler, not Wonder Amy. That they hadn't talked last night. Persuade her as though for the very first time. "I realize that I was not your first choice in theoretical physicists for this project. And, while I do think that was ill-advised on your part, I understand that the uneven nature of our acquaintance probably factored into your decision."

"You think?" Amy muttered.

"I also know that things did not end well between us the last time we met. Or the first time. So our average isn't good."

"That's an understatement."

"However, despite all of that, I propose that we agree to work together as amicably as we can on this. Timing is an issue, I understand, as is the proximity to other scientists to assist you, and I already have the required government clearance. There's my unequaled knowledge and intelligence to consider. I am highly interested in the science of metahumans and I want to do my part. I will be the model coworker. I respect that you are head of this project, and I will follow your orders to a T. I am punctual and reliable in my attendance. I will be here as required and not a second longer; I will still eat lunch in the cafeteria with my friends so that you may eat alone. I will not discuss anything of a personal nature with you; if you like, I will not even acknowledge that you're human. To underlie the professional nature of our interactions, I will address you as Dr. Fowler and you may call me Dr. Cooper. Additionally, I will not reference that incident in the cafeteria nor will I bring it up in any other fashion. I suggest that perhaps we find a way to start again."

"A reboot, as it were?" Amy asked, causing Sheldon to bite his tongue until it was sore to keep from answering and pointing out that's exactly what he told her it was called last night.

As he was silent, Amy nodded sharply. "Fine. I agree to all but one of your terms."

"All but one?" Sheldon asked, surprised. He thought his little speech was perfect. He never ceased to impress himself with his intellectual adaptability even on short notice. The terms he proposed were excellent, government agents with big ears or not. His next statement was going to be the suggestion that perhaps he author a written agreement for this partnership.

"To use our full professional titles is wordy and takes up too much time. It would better to use our breath and verbal energy for the exchange of ideas," she countered.

Tilting his head, Sheldon agreed. "Very well. You may call me Sheldon."

Amy put out her hand in front of her, and he took it easily, trying not to think too much about how timid and sad it seemed beneath his last night. But there was nothing timid and sad about her handshake today. "And you may call me Amy . . . just Amy."

* * *

There were awkward pauses and lengthy silences. There were even a few shuffling movements when they found themselves walking in opposite directions and had to dance around each other in the narrow spaces between the work tables and lab equipment.

But, on the whole, the first week passed peacefully.

Amy's desire for a theoretical physicist become logical when she explained that the monkeys that had turned mutant were being used for proton therapy research, specifically to test a brand-new radioactive isotope for use in cyclotron treatments. They discussed initial thoughts and ideas, agreeing that, since they were brainstorming, it was best to write down all options. Sheldon brought a whiteboard from his office for the purpose. Amy taught him things she thought he needed to know about neurobiology, her lessons were clear and comprehensive. She listened carefully when he spoke on his own expertise and asked thoughtful questions.

Sheldon found her work style was clean and methodical, the product of a well-organized and linear mind. He resisted the urge to compliment her on this, mostly because then he'd have to point that he'd been correct in suspecting her previous spills were ruses. It was immediately apparent that she expected him to work diligently, not that he would have done otherwise. Amy didn't coddle him; when he said something she found to be a fallacy, her criticism was quick and sharp, but, ultimately, he found it constructive.

Only once did a disagreement start to gurgle up between them, and Amy stood in front of him, her stance wide, her green eyes flashing, her hands on her hips. Sheldon opened his mouth and shut it again. He let her win only to avoid telling her that was exactly how Wonder Amy stood. Because Big Brother was listening.

By the third morning, he found a little spring in his step as he walked toward her lab. Amy's dedication to the project was infectious and her high scientific principles were just as admirable as Sheldon had known they would be. No, he still didn't know if she'd ever visit his apartment again, but he was getting to observe Dr. Fowler in her natural habitat and that was what he wanted most of all.

On Tuesday morning, Amy stopped speaking mid-sentence and she looked uncharacteristically indecisive.

"Is everything okay?" Sheldon asked. "I mean, if that's not too personal of a question."

"Yes. I just need to . . . um, go photocopy this paper. Keep working on that line of thought, it's very promising. I'll be back!" she yelled, running out of the lab via the smaller room in the back, which Sheldon knew for a fact was in the opposite direction of the department's copy machine, because he passed it every morning on his way into the building.

Sheldon barely managed to remain silent when she returned two hours later with her scent stronger than ever, the bottom on her ponytail curling up on itself, and the faint mark of something that had been pressing against her forehead. She told him the copy machine was broken and she had to fix it, which seemed highly unlikely as she'd didn't have a stack of papers to show for her effort.

When he returned from lunch on Thursday, the lab was empty. Sheldon worked quietly for twenty minutes, but he discovered he had reached an impasse in his thoughts for which he needed insight from Amy. After playing a couple of rounds of Tetris on his phone, he decided to see if she was in that back room. After knocking, he opened the door to see her cardigan and skirt and shoes in disarray. His forehead crinkled as he studied the pattern of the clothes, the way they seemed to have shot out from the center of the room as though she'd lost them by spinning in a centrifuge.

Intrigued but silent, he went back to the front room, deciding to try a different line of mathematics until Amy reappeared, flushed and with red painted lips and her hair curled up on the ends again.

"Oh!" her eyes widened quickly but then she seemed to shake it off, her voice calmer. "I apologize for the delay. I went to photocopy something over lunch and the machine was inoperable again."

"That machine must be quite the diabolical beast," he replied.

Amy's head snapped toward him quickly as she pulled her hair back in the ponytail she always wore in the lab, but he kept his face blank to her warning gaze. "It is," she finally murmured.

On Friday afternoon, when she interrupted her normally flawless dialogue again, Sheldon held a paper out to her.

"What's this?" Amy asked, taking the paper.

"It needs photocopied." She looked at him, her face surprised but softly so. Sheldon waved his fingers and nodded his head towards the back room. "Chop chop. It's not going to photocopy itself."

"Indeed." She turned to run toward the back room, but, on the way, Sheldon saw her smile.

* * *

That night, when he saw the flash of light under the bedroom door out of the corner of his eyes, his eyebrows when up in pleasurable surprise. By the time he'd put his book down on his nightstand, she was standing in the doorway, her stance wide, her green eyes flashing, and her hands on her hips, that sly smile upon her red lips.

"I've considered your offer," she said without preamble, "and I agree to all but one of your terms. I wish to sleep here tonight."

"All but one?" Sheldon let his eyes travel down and back up her body. Her Wonder Amy body, complete with metal breastplate and boots. "Wonder Amy?"

A thought stuck him, and he turned to grab his phone, taping out his message quickly in the Notes app. He held up for her to read, and she stepped closer to the bed, leaning over the edge to see it.

 **Is my apartment wiretapped, too?**

"No."

 **How can you be sure?**

Amy smiled. "Because I had it swept earlier this evening while you were out with your friends."

"What? How?"

The mischievous grin returned. "I called in a favor. Don't worry, we installed jamming devices so even if Uncle Sam bugs you in the future, they'll never hear anything."

"I don't know whether to be grateful to you or frightened of your power," Sheldon confessed, putting his phone back.

"You're welcome." She stood back up straight on the opposite of the bed.

Sheldon looked over at her again. "Let me guess. You won't come as Dr. Fowler."

"I can't. Dr. Fowler doesn't have an invisible jet. Dr. Fowler can't get a running start and leap higher in the air than any human. I even spread a rumor at UCLA that Dr. Fowler can't spread her hips more than twenty-two degrees." Amy sat down on the edge of the bed. "If that's a deal breaker for you, I understand and I'll leave."

"But does Dr. Fowler drive?" Sheldon asked with a frown. "Couldn't you just drive here that way? Won't you be driving here anyway on Fridays, when we eat across the hall?"

Amy's head pulled back and her eyebrows dipped. "I thought you said I could come here to sleep, to relax."

"Well, yes, but . . ." Sheldon sighed. "People don't talk much in their sleep. Goodness knows I never do. I guess I thought I could tell my friends I'm dating Dr. Fowler."

"I don't think that's a good idea. We're working on the project together," Amy said.

"But we're not in the same department, so there's no rule against fraternization," Sheldon rebutted.

The look he never wanted to see again returned to her face, that look of absolute terror. "No. I can't."

"Amy." Sheldon reached out and touched her knee very softly. "Why not? You can tell me. I meant it when I said I'd never tell. Not any of your secrets."

She took several deep breaths and nodded. "I think I'm being followed."

"As Wonder Amy?" Sheldon asked.

"No," Amy shook her head, "as Dr. Fowler. After I discovered the bugs in the lab, I just feel like they're after me."

Sheldon crinkled his brow. "But why? Because of the Task Force? Do you think they're following me to?"

"No." Amy put her head down. "I can't explain it, Sheldon. I have no proof, if that's what you want. But Dr. Fowler is . . . frightened sometimes." Her voice was so very small.

Then she looked up again. "But here -" she rested her hand over the top edge of her breastplate "- I'm Dr. Fowler, too. Here, I feel safe with you."

He adjusted his legs under the covers. Sheldon knew, of course, that she was Dr. Fowler, too, no matter what she wore. It was just that he had his heart set on learning more about Dr. Fowler. Not to mention there was something about her cardigans and tights that he especially enjoyed. But the alternative was to not get to know her at all; things were too stilted in the lab because of the wiretapping for them to engage in personal conversations. That and Dr. Fowler was a brisk task master.

Wonder Amy may not think she needed anyone's protection, but Dr. Fowler did. Dr. Fowler was asking for his help. And he felt very protective of Dr. Fowler.

"Very well," he nodded. "Obviously, I have no experience being a superhero, so if you say this is necessary to protect your secret identity as Dr. Fowler, then I believe you."

"So I can sleep here tonight?"

"You are always welcome, every night if you like," Sheldon answered, his voice softer.

"In that case, I'll be right back." She smiled and got up and then walked into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her.

After the flush of the toilet and sound of the sink, the door opened and Amy stepped out slowly. She suddenly seemed nervous, which wasn't something he expected from either version of her. "So, I just get under the covers with you?"

"Alright."

Her walk was not her usual prance. She stopped uneasily at the edge of the bed. "I should get undressed."

"I can't imagine that your current attire is conducive to sleep."

There was a brief pause, and then Amy turned her back to him, unclasping her armor and lowering it to the floor. Next she removed her skirt, folding it carefully and setting it on the end table. She placed her tiara and her bracelets on top of it. It occurred to Sheldon that he should clean out that drawer for her. Then she sat on the edge of the bed in her star-covered underpants, reaching down to unzip her tall red boots.

It felt strangely intimate, watching her undress like this, her bare back facing him and the occasional glimpse of her breast. It was nothing at all like her strip tease for him the first night, and certainly Sheldon had seen her mostly naked more than once. But this was Amy divesting herself of her superhero costume, just Amy preparing for bed.

The last thing she removed was her glasses, and then she turned her head to look over her shoulder. "What if I get cold?"

"Oh. Yes." Sheldon reached for the neck of his pajama shirt and pulled it over his head without unbuttoning it. Amy took it and pulled it on the same way. Only then did she tuck her feet under the blankets and lie down.

"Goodnight. Sweet dreams," Sheldon said at her and turned off the light, lowering himself between the sheets next to her. In the darkness, Amy whispered, "Thank you for understanding me." A pause and then, "I mean, about the nightshirt."

Rolling over, Sheldon wrapped his arm around her waist with smile and he felt Amy relax into his embrace.

 _To be continued . . ._

* * *

 _ **And now for the rest of the story . . . When we did our Wonder Amy Intervention project in July, the fanartists asked for specific assignments, and I had to come up with three things off of the top of my head. Out came the words "mutant lab monkeys." Regina (on Instagram and other platforms as rgbcn) took the idea and ran with it, creating the most inventive fanart. The idea and her drawing tickled me so much they became a major plot point here. I've shared her art on Instagram, and I hope you chuckle as much as I do, every single time I look at it.**_

 _ **Thank you in advance for your reviews!**_


	9. Chapter 9

. . .

* * *

 **THE WONDER AMY PARADOX**

 **Chapter Nine**

* * *

He had a plan. And, as with all his plans, Sheldon knew it was foolproof. He'd had four days to formulate this plan and everything was ready and waiting for her arrival.

Sheldon did not believe in televisions in the bedroom, having never been raised with one in his room. Instead, he preferred to read or engage in some other silent activity to quiet his mind before sleep. However, he moved his television to the bedroom dresser three nights ago, in preparation for Amy's return. He'd hoped she'd return the very next night, but she did not.

He longed to know why, but was unable to ask. She was gone when he awoke the next morning, and, of course, he was forced into silence during the day by the wiretaps. Amy had waved him over to point out one of the small devices to him the other day, their faces and body movement having one conversation while their voices had a completely different one about all the new features in the cafeteria. In the lab, there was only discussion about work, nothing personal. He realized that was the suggestion he'd proposed for their work when he was rambling his ideas off to Amy; it was just that he'd been hoping she wouldn't take it so literally, and that they could - that she'd _want_ to - speak freely while working.

Now that they were following his parameters exactly, he realized he had thought that once Amy agreed to share his bed, even in a chaste manner, she would have found a way to share more of herself during the day. Surely something as innocent as her favorite color would not have revealed her secret identity? Intimacy was such a counterintuitive concept. People used the word intimacy to mean sex, but he had found sleeping next to Amy was just as intimate to him. He longed for that level of intimacy during the day. Or even the hint that she was open to it.

Otherwise, their work was going well. They continued to interact easily, their mutual dedication to science helping bridge any possible gaps and disagreements. Finally, though, on the fourth night, there was a flash in the living room and Amy returned.

"I wondered if you'd come again," Sheldon said when she noiselessly opened the bedroom door (that solved one mystery; she _did_ use door knobs!).

"I didn't wish to abuse my welcome." Even her posture was different when she was Wonder Amy, he noticed, with her shoulders thrown back and her head held higher.

"You are welcome every night," Sheldon explained again. "But I understand, of course, that you have other things to do. And you must have your own place somewhere that you need to check on." He thought of Amy sitting on a sofa somewhere and knitting. The lab coat Amy. "If there's . . . a hobby you like to do in the evenings, you're welcome to do it here, too."

"Maybe," she said noncommittally. She started the ritual of removing her clothing, but she stopped and smiled at him, picking up what he'd left on her bedside table.

Sheldon waved to the flannel shirt. "It's clean."

"Thank you. But I like it when it smells like you," she said as she lowered the pajama top over her head.

He studied her as she got under the covers with him. Her smell was so strong on his sheets that he had not considered that she could even detect his own scent. "I thought, unless you're too tired, that I would share one of my hobbies with you tonight. Normally not in bed, but, well, this is where you are."

"Oh, the television?" Amy asked, noticing the large black screen.

Smiling, he reached for the remote on his side of the bed. "Yes. It's _Star Trek_. I assume you've heard of it?"

"Of course."

Sheldon grinned wider and queued up the carefully chosen episode. "This is one of the best episodes of the The Original Series, 'The Enemy Within.' Shall we watch?"

As the episode unfolded, Sheldon kept one eye on the screen and one eye on Amy. This was the perfect episode, the lynchpin of his entire plan. After a transporter accident on Alpha 177, Captain Kirk was split into two halves: one impulsive, strong, and bold, the other thoughtful and weaker. It was a classic episode, an exploration of what it took to be a whole person, how the flaws were necessary to balance the favorable traits, otherwise the favorable traits could turn ugly, too. Mostly, though, it was an examination of why one person couldn't be two, why it necessary to love all of one's self.

Amy flinched and cringed at all the correct times, she smiled at the comment about red wine, and she even murmured about Spock, "He _is_ wise." Sheldon thought, with not a little pride, that his plan was working perfectly. She was just as enthralled as he hoped, not just because he wanted her to like _Star Trek_ but, because like all the greatest _Star Trek_ episodes, it would open the conversation to deeper topics.

Like how he wanted to get to know Dr. Fowler. Not just in the lab, but also here. He wanted to convince her that it wasn't only Wonder Amy that held his interest. In fact, the more silent Dr. Fowler was, the more questions he found he had about her. He wanted the whole story; was it Dr. Fowler or Wonder Amy that had traveled from Themyscira? And why? Who was closer to the true Amy? He understood that Amy was accustomed to using Dr. Fowler as a shy and reclusive smoke screen, but he wanted to find out what was ticking away in that heart, the one she claimed was Dr. Fowler, too. He wanted her to understand it was not only permissible but also necessary to love all of herself. The way he wanted to love her.

Until the aggressive half of Kirk tried to (or succeeded? it was hard to tell with 1960's editing) assault Yeoman Rand. Amy covered her eyes and cried out, "Why are you making me watch this?"

Scrambling for the remote, Sheldon paused the show. "It's a classic episode; it's meant to be thought provoking, about the duality of mankind."

"I don't like it."

"If you watch to the end, you'll see the moral of the story, the necessity of integrating and admitting to the duality of one's person that results in one -"

"I don't want to watch it. One is too weak and boring, the other is evil and destructive. It's not real! No one is like that!"

"Well, of course it's not real, it's science fiction. It's an allegory."

"I will not watch." Amy sat up and pulled the blankets off of her, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

Sheldon's eyebrows went up in alarm. "Wait! Where are you going? Are you leaving? I'm sorry, Amy, I thought you would enjoy it, I thought we could talk about it and -"

She picked up her armor and skirt and slammed the bedroom door on him.

Sighing, Sheldon turned off the television and his BluRay player. Not only had his plan not worked, but it seemed it had even backfired. So much for the philosophy of _Star Trek_.

The next morning he found the pajama top tossed on the living room floor.

* * *

"No, we can't determine that yet," Sheldon said, resting his chin on the dry erase marker. "We need to know the exact energies of each of the protons so we can calculate their Bragg peaks. Do we have that data?"

"I think it's here somewhere." Amy crossed to the other side of the table, bending over her computer screen.

So far, today in the lab was proceeding just as smoothly as the previous days had without any mention of the disastrous outcome of Sheldon's attempt at using _Star Trek_ as a conversation starter. But then, Sheldon reasoned, of course not. Dr. Fowler would not have spent any time in Dr. Cooper's bed, even if they were just watching television, so why would she have mentioned it in the lab?

"Why so many different protons anyway?" Sheldon asked. "It seems inefficient. It takes significant energy for the accelerators to produce protons in this wide of a range."

"It's necessary to have various Bragg peaks to penetrate various depths," Amy explained, her eyes scanning the screen. "Tumors are amorphous in shape, resulting in various distances from the skin. And no one's body is a flat plane, either."

Sheldon tilted his head at that and he looked at his numbers again and considered this. "That makes sense."

"Different strengths of the same particle are required to join forces to make the whole. Any one particle on its own is worthless." Amy paused before adding, her voice not as confident, "I believe there is an episode of _Star Trek_ about that."

Pivoting sharply, Sheldon turned to look her, but her eyes remained glued on the computer screen.

" _Star Trek_? The Original Series? 'The Enemy Within?'"

"Yes, I think that's the one."

Had his plan worked in a delayed fashion? Was she going to casually mention that she'd also watched it last night, so they could openly discuss the episode and its meanings?

"I bet you hated it. Did you even finish it?" Sheldon asked with a little puff of frustration.

"I did at first," Amy said, neatly sidestepping his question. "But, after consideration, I came to understand what the moral was, about the importance of embracing one's whole self, even the less desirable parts, because the good parts balance those out." She finally looked up at him. "It was too heavy handed and obvious, of course, and there's an appalling scene, isn't there, with that one crew woman?"

"Well, yes, but it's meant to be appalling."

Amy looked back down at her computer screen. " _Star Trek_ is your favorite?"

"Oh, yes." Sheldon paused. For the first time, the conversation had wandered away from the purely professional. It was a small insight into their private lives, but an insight nonetheless. "What is your favorite television show?"

" _Little House on the Prairie._ "

"What?" Sheldon asked, genuinely surprised. He thought it would be _Lois & Clark_. Or that new medical documentary series on the Discovery Channel with the extremely handsome host. What was it? Oh, yes, _First in Human_. "My sister used to watch that in reruns when we were kids. She'd make me watch it before she'd let me have the TV to watch _Professor Proton_. I didn't know it was still on."

"There are reruns every evening on Cozi TV." Amy leaned back in her chair and looked over at him. "I know it's old and silly, but it's nice. It was a simpler time, where no one had to worry about saving the world because it was so much smaller. There were no mutant monkeys in Walnut Grove."

Then she smiled, the first genuine smile Sheldon had ever seen from her - the Dr. Fowler version of her. He felt repetitive just thinking it, but it was just like Wonder Amy's genuine smile. He smiled back. "No, but that would have livened things up."

The smile broadened but her next question was back to their work.

That night, when she came, he suggested they just flip the channels and decide together on something to watch. This was a plan, too, but a different one. After only three channels, the screen filled with the opening credits of _Little House on the Prairie_.

"Huh," Sheldon said, "what are the chances? We were just talking about this."

"Indeed. What are the chances? Perhaps it's a sign we should rewatch it." Amy snuggled up closer to his shoulder, and Sheldon brought his arm around her, pulling her even tighter.

"Yes, I think it is."

* * *

"Oh, I got a new binder of data from the forensic team. It's on my desk," Amy waved at him as she continued to study a slide in her microscope.

"I assume it's just as useless as all the others," Sheldon replied, but he got up to retrieve it anyway. He would, as he had with the others, flip through the columns of data in case something unusual leapt out at him. It was boring but necessary work for their research, and doing it while Amy was studying a sliced monkey brain seemed as good a time as any.

At her desk, he reached for the black binder on top but his eye was caught by a colorful paperback book resting next to it. Glancing over his shoulder, he reached forward and picked up the book: _Death by Darjeeling_ by Laura Childs. Despite the title, the cover scene was one of peace, reminiscent of a pleasant English garden party.

"Is this yours?" he asked, reading the title aloud.

Amy turned around. "Yes. I quite enjoy that author."

"But it's - it's . . . " He searched for the right world. Why wouldn't Amy read science fiction? Or science fact?

"Fluffy and simple? I know. That's why I read them. I just finished that one at lunch today." At least that explained why she still refused to eat in the cafeteria, what she did alone in her lab every day. That was, every day she didn't get called out to fix the copy machine.

Considering the cover again, it did look like something a woman who knit her own sweaters and loved _Little House on the Prairie_ would enjoy. Even if that woman seemed so contradictory to how the world was used to thinking of Wonder Amy. "Do you like it because it's a mystery or because of the tea element?"

"Both. I've read other cozy mysteries with different themes, but I found I quite enjoyed the tea shop location of this one." She shrugged. "I'm a fan of hot tea. Anyway, now I have to get the rest of the series to read." She turned back to her microscope. "That binder isn't going to review itself."

Sheldon dropped the paperback and set to work.

* * *

"What's this?" she asked even before she had removed her tiara, looking down at the two new objects Sheldon had left on her bedside table for her.

Sheldon lowered his book and said, "Although I enjoy watching television with you, I am not a proponent of blue light in the bedroom. I moved the TV back to the living room. We can still watch it, if you'd like to come earlier. I could make you dinner if I knew when you'd be here." He thought about telling her he'd set his DVR to record all episodes of both _Little House on the Prairie_ and _Murder, She Wrote_ but he didn't want to overplay his hand.

"You enjoy reading before bed instead." It was both not a question nor the answer to his invitation.

"Yes." He twisted and grabbed his mug off the end table. "And drinking tea. So I left you a book and a cup of your own. Don't worry, it won't keep you awake, it's chamomile. It should still be hot; I just made it."

Amy picked up the brand new book and read the title aloud. " _Gunpowder Green: A Tea Shop Mystery_ by Laura Childs. The second in this series, I believe."

Then she sat the book down quickly, and he watched her carefully as she disrobed and pulled the covers up to slide under them. "Do you not like it? Do only read in your lab, and not before bed?"

"I didn't say that." She reached for the book with one hand and the yellow mug with the other. "If they are here, it would be rude not to enjoy them."

Sheldon looked back down at his page with smile.

The next morning, per usual, Amy was gone before he awoke. But, scrawled across the bathroom mirror in her bold red lipstick were the words: **Dinner. 6:30.** Sheldon puzzled, not over their meaning or even their appearance, but rather where Wonder Amy was able to hide a tube of lipstick in her costume.

* * *

"Truth."

Sheldon sighed. "It's hardly a game if you pick truth every time."

"I thought you wanted to learn more about me. We have this lasso, let it aid us in this purpose."

They were sitting facing each other on the bed, Sheldon cross legged and Amy with her legs tucked to the side under Sheldon's pajama top. Her golden lasso was wrapped around one of each of their arms, the appendages in question bond together between them. Their palms were very close, and it probably would have been more logical to hold hands, but there was some elicit thrill in the occasional brush of skin instead of the constant contact.

It was true that Sheldon had asked for suggestions of an exercise that would enable them to learn small details about each other. The suggestion had stemmed from conversation over dinner. It was not the first dinner in which it had become apparent he was more willing to share than his guest. In fact, there had now been two full weeks of dinner (with the exceptions of Fridays across the hall) and falling asleep together, although Amy had been late twice and had to leave once during the meal due to a mysterious silent call for her special services.

This gave him an idea. "Very well. A truth. How do you change from that -" he waved his free hand at her "- into Wonder Amy? How do you put on your costume?"

Finally, he would understand the flashes of light and appearing and disappearing via the back room of lab, the room without an exit, and, especially, the odd positioning of her clothes when she left.

Amy tilted her head. "You have asked for both a truth and dare. But I will follow the directives of the game." She leaned forward and unwound the lasso from her arm. "A demonstration."

"A demonstration?" Sheldon repeated, his heart tapping in excitement at his good fortune. Could he next ask her how she received the messages of need? Or for a ride in her invisible jet?

Sheldon watched her as she turned her back, taking off her the pajama top, revealing only her blue panties, and then put back on the skirt and breastplate she'd removed upon arrival a few hours prior. Always, she immediately removed her costume now and put on his shirt. "This reminds me," he said as she worked, "you can bring some spare clothes and toiletries here if you like. I'll clean out some space for you."

"I like wearing your shirt," she said as she put it back on over her armor.

He frowned, suspecting that she didn't wish to do so because it would confirm that Dr. Fowler visited here, too. Her absence every morning was no doubt to go home to shower and dress, in addition to straightening her hair and removing every last hint of lipstick. They hadn't discussed it since that first night, that Dr. Fowler would never visit this apartment for fear of revealing her secret identity. He'd mostly accepted it as necessary, but there were moments, like this, when it rankled still.

To his surprise, she picked up her bracelets and put them back on, also. "You don't have to put everything back on for me," he offered. "I'm sure I'll get the idea."

"The bracelets are necessary." She came to stand on the foot of the bed, and Sheldon pulled himself to the end, sitting up straight, to get the best possible view.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

"Oh, yes."

Amy stretched her arms wide and closed her eyes, twisted on her feet and then she - she twirled! One slow rotation but then very rapidly on her tiptoes and there was a flash of light so bright Sheldon winced and there was the sound of flying fabric. When he reopened his eyes, Wonder Amy stood in front of him, her hand on her hips and her hair freshly curled. His pajama top was a good four feet away, lying flat over the threshold to the bathroom.

"How? What?" he asked looking around in amazement. "It's still buttoned!"

"It is a combination of speed and my bracelets. That is all I know," she explained with a shrug.

"But the physics don't make any sense. It you're moving as fast as a centrifuge, then the shirt would have to rip and . . . and your hair?"

Another shrug, a delightful and teasing movement of her creamy shoulders.

"So you wear your bracelets at all times?" Sheldon asked before he frowned. "But you always take them off when you get here."

"There's no reason to wear them where I am safe."

Sheldon smiled at her. "If you don't know how they work, can you at least tell me what they are made of?"

Amy stepped close to him, holding out her arm, palm up, for him to inspect the bracelet. "Amazonium, a metal unique to Themyscira. They are bulletproof, indestructible even."

Sheldon grasped her wrist. The metal was just as cold as he remembered from those nights they'd made love, just as cold as it was through Dr. Fowler's cardigan. Looking carefully, he asked, "How do you put them on? There's no seam."

"Let me." Amy's other hand skimmed over his, and she moved his forefinger until he felt a small circle of relative warmth in the metal. "Do you feel that?" He nodded. "Press."

The bracelet popped open. Sheldon looked up at her with a smile. "Fascinating. I normally find that engineers are people that couldn't make it as physicists, but I will admit to being impressed."

"Well, they were female engineers." That smile!

"And your breastplate? I've noticed you press the side to remove it, also. But it isn't cold."

Taking his hand, she rested it against her metal-clad stomach. "It is an alloy for just that reason. It's still very strong but not indestructible. But it would be too uncomfortable to wear otherwise."

"And the button for the latch?" Sheldon asked, trying to ignore how her scent was especially strong.

"Dare. Find it."

He slid his had around to her side, trying to look anywhere other than her chest at his eye level. After what felt like an eternity he found it, the slightly warmer spot near her waist. It was necessary to press harder than with the bracelets, he discovered, but at last there was faint clicking noise and the breastplate released and he had to reach up to grab it with both hands before it fell.

"Oh, I'm sorry - " Sheldon looked up and gulped. Amy's breasts. "What do I do with this?" he whispered.

"Let it go. It will not break."

It happened in such a rush, it was impossible to determine the exact order. He both tossed the armor away so that it landed on the carpet with a thud and he welcomed her arms around his head, burying his face between her breasts.

"Oh, Amy . . ." He reached up to hold them, circling her nipples with his thumbs as they hardened beneath his touch. Amy moaned, and he turned his head, capturing one of her erect nipples in his mouth, nibbling slowing and then sucking as he pulled away to meet the other.

She pushed him back in the bed, crawling over him, her breasts swinging low. Their mouths met fiercely, a hunger denied for too many nights, and Sheldon slid his hands down her strong back, slipping them under the waistband of her skirt and her panties at the same time, pushing the fabric down and away from her bottom that he squeezed as Amy groaned into his mouth.

"Touch me," she growled.

Eager, desperate, Sheldon wrapped his hands past her hips, toward the very core of her -

"No." He pushed her away and she got off the bed, her skirt caught around her knees.

"Sheldon? It's obvious you want me, too."

"I do," he admitted. Oh, how he did! "But not yet, not like this. I - I - need to wait."

Amy wrinkled her brow, which somehow only make her more alluring. There was no shame in her nudity. "For what do you wait? Tell me."

Chastened, he looked away and whispered. "I cannot." But his heart thumped _just Amy._

* * *

There was a _chink-THUD_ of someone trying to open the locked door and it startled Sheldon so much he almost dropped his marker. His mind raced as he walked to the door. Was it Amy, at last? Why the door, like that, when she'd apparently never entered that way before? She was later than usual, and Sheldon had eaten without her. It was a Sunday, so he hadn't seen her all day. Of course, she hadn't contacted him and he had no way to contact her. He could call the listing for Dr. Fowler in his phone, of course, but . . . well . . . there so many reasons he couldn't.

Last night, for one. Embarrassed and painfully aroused, he'd fled to the bathroom for a cold shower, but once there, the need for release had become so overwhelming he'd clenched his jaw until it was painful to keep from crying out as he imagined, not her armor, but instead her white lab coat falling open around her naked body. But Amy had been gone when he opened the bathroom door.

No, he wouldn't think about it again. It was a slip, a misstep, that was all. Sheldon opened the door with a relieved grin but then it immediately fell. "Oh, it's you."

"It's good to see you, too, buddy," Leonard said as he walked in. "Since when do you lock the door?"

"For a while."

"Whatever. Hurry! Turn on the news!" Leonard reached for the remote on the coffee table and flipped on the television.

"Why?" But Sheldon knew, even as he sat down next to Leonard. He knew it was for the exact reason he'd stopped watching the news, the same reason he'd stopped buying Wonder Amy comic books. He didn't want to know about the day a villain more powerful than her appeared on the scene. He had nightmares that she'd arrive at his apartment, not just with the occasional small scratch or slightly disheveled hair, but instead with a broken limb. Or not arrive at all.

" - Almost all the passengers on the Boeing 747-8 jet, we're told by the airline, are children between the ages of eight and thirteen, various little league teams returning from a tournament in Japan," the voice of the reporter on screen said as an airplane tilted preciously in sky, clearly broken in the middle but still connected along the bottom of the fuselage. And there, just beneath the hinge of metal holding it together, was Wonder Amy.

"As all citizens of Los Angeles know, we've seen feats of bravery and strength from Wonder Amy before, but this is astonishing. She is single-handily holding the airplane together and appears to be pushing it west toward the ocean. I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say I'm in awe of her strength and pose at this moment."

The cameras tried to zoom in on her, and although the image was grainy, Sheldon thought he could see the effort in her face, her arms shaking from the effort. He groaned and lowered his head into his hands.

"You're missing it!" Leonard said, punching his arm. "What is she doing?"

"It appears," the reported answered for him, "that Wonder Amy is attempting to move the crippled jet over the ocean. We have received word the Coast Guard has been activated for a water rescue mission. Joining us now is Major General Riley Bloom, the Air Force's Associate Director of Metahuman Regulations. Sir, are we correct that this is a new level of strength from Wonder Amy?"

"Yes, it appears so. We have previously known that Wonder Amy could lift and carry one hundred tons, but a fully loaded Boeing 747-8 could weigh up to 493 tons."

"Where is Superman?" Sheldon roared into his palms. "Or Iron Man? Or anyone else?"

"Where are the other superheroes that could assist in this effort?" asked the reporter.

"Obviously, we don't track the whereabouts of the superheroes at all times," Major Riley said -

"Bullsugar," Leonard mumbled next to him.

"- so I cannot even speculate into that line of inquiry. It is only reasonable -"

"Sorry to interrupt, Major, but we're returning to our live feed. It seems that Wonder Amy may be losing her grasp on the jumbo jet."

Sheldon peeked between his fingers to see the entire broken plane dip and then rise in jerky movements as Wonder Amy adjusted her arms. But, then, as Sheldon watched in the terror, the front of the airplane ripped free and plummeted quickly, crashing into the Santa Monica pier, erupting into a fireball.

Even the announcer was stunned into silence as Wonder Amy was able to rise above the flames with the back of the plane, which she carried further out to sea before she lowered it gently into the ocean, disappearing herself beneath the waves as the Coast Guard ships steamed toward the location from the edge of the screen. His heart pounding in his throat, Sheldon watched the ripples of the waves traveling in concentric circles from the floating fuselage until they met the waves from the approaching ships. Time stopped as smoke from the burning pier hung in eerie calm over the silent scene.

"If you joining us now," the reporter returned, his voice softer, "we just witnessed a great tragedy that even Wonder Amy could not prevent. Additionally, Wonder Amy has not yet risen out of the water and there are very real concerns that she may not."

"Turn it off!" Sheldon cried, running through the bedroom to the bathroom, where he curled up next to the toilet, sobbing and wishing he could vomit his heart out.

 _To be continued . . ._

* * *

 ** _No one said falling in love with a superhero would be easy . . ._**

 ** _Thank you in advance for your reviews!_**


	10. Chapter 10

. . .

* * *

 **THE WONDER AMY PARADOX**

 **Chapter Ten**

* * *

"Sheldon?" It was a raspy whisper, as though far away.

He raised his head, squinting in the harsh light of the bathroom, unsure of how much time had passed since he watched his life go up in flames before his eyes. Before he'd yelled at Leonard to go away and leave him alone. Had he passed out from fear?

She stood in the bathroom doorway, but barely, her eyes lidded with pain. Gone was the defiant stance and sly smirks. Her hair was wet and limp and had something caught in it. The tiara was askew. Her skirt was ripped and her boots were caked in mud, and her glasses were so dirty it was a wonder she could see out of them. She held her lasso limply at her side and then she dropped it, as though even that was too much effort, before her knees buckled and she sagged against the door frame.

"Amy!" Sheldon struggled to get upright, catching her in his arms. "Amy?"

Crimson blood ran down over her eye to her cheek from under her tiara. Mixed with it was something dark and greasy, and it occurred to him that it was airplane fuel. She hissed when he held her, and he looked down to see red welts and blisters arising along her forearm. "Amy, these are burns! And where is all this blood coming from? You need to go to the ER. I'll get Penny or Leonard to drive -"

"No," she shook her head, "they will be . . . gone tomorrow . . . pain is temporary."

"I think you're in shock." Sheldon looked around the bathroom, desperate for an idea. Metahuman first aid was not a course he'd ever taken. If it was a course that even existed. His eyes settled on the shower. "How about a bath? Let's at least get you out of these dirty clothes."

Amy nodded weakly, and Sheldon started the water filling in the bathtub before he led her to the toilet to sit on the lid as he struggled to remove her breastplate and the rest of her clothes. Too weak to assist, Amy leaned against him as the blood and gasoline smeared on his own tee shirt. She groaned in pain as he removed her left boot, revealing a purple and swollen ankle. Sheldon held her foot and looked up at her. "You need medical attention. I think it's broken."

"No!" she yelled but then slumped further from the effort it had taken to do so. "It will heal. Please."

Her eyes were full of pain, but he couldn't withstand the begging gaze mixed in with it. Against his better judgement, he nodded and started on the other boot. He had to pull her upright and try to shimmy her panties down with one hand while she collapsed into his chest, no longer able to support herself on her ankle. How had she stood in the doorway? How had she gotten here? Her clothes were sodden and smelled of sea life. How different this was from the last time he'd undressed her.

At last she was naked, even her bracelets and tiara removed, and Sheldon picked her up whole and carried her to the bathtub. He lowered her just as gently into it as she had lowered the back half of that plane, careful not to jostle her injured body. Now that he could see all of her, he noticed bruises blooming like painful flowers all over her skin. There was an especially dark one on the bottom of her shoulder blade.

"Is the temperature okay?" he asked.

"Yes."

He let go of her just long enough to go to the sink and fill the glass he kept there with cold water, taking the opportunity to peel off his now dirty shirt, also. He knelt down next to the bathtub. "Here, drink this. I know it's the cup I use when I brush my teeth but -"

Reaching for the cup, Amy downed the water greedily. "Slow down, slow down!" Sheldon admonished, and, when she coughed at her overeager efforts, he patted her back. Then he took the empty glass and started the process of washing Amy, first her hair, pulling out the seaweed with disgust, scrubbing the caking blood and greasy fuel from her face, discovering a gash along her forehead hiding beneath. He got out a fresh washcloth to clean that and also for the smarting burn on her arm.

"I'm so sorry," he said when she whimpered at his ministrations and he looked up to see tears streaming down her cheeks. "I know it hurts, but I have to clean it thoroughly so that it doesn't get infected."

"It is not that," she said and then her voice broke. "I couldn't save them all. They were just children."

"Oh, Amy. I know." Sheldon put down the washcloth and leaned forward further, pulling her close to him, letting her wet body and hair soak him as she sobbed into his chest, her arms reaching up to clench his shoulders.

Sheldon held her until his arms and legs ached and the water turned cool, until her sobs turned into raspy hiccups, until she let him lift her out and carry her to bed, where he dried her and dressed her wounds as she stared off into the distance, nearly catatonic. From grief or pain or both? Holding it straight and wrapping it tightly, he especially fretted over her ankle. He covered her with extra blankets for warmth and then he stroked the uninjured side of her forehead and sang a lullaby from his childhood to her, about the softness and innocence of pets.

* * *

For the first time, she was still sleeping when Sheldon decided to get up the next morning. He'd tried to sleep on the floor beside her, but he only tossed and turned. Now, rubbing his face, he stood over her, studying her. Amy had curled in on herself in the middle of the bed and her face was peaceful, with none of the agony of the night before. Were her wounds really already healed? Her hair had dried during the night, and it fanned out around her as straight as it was every day in the lab.

Sheldon bent over to kiss that hair, and she shifted her head but did not wake. Her slumber was so deep she did not wake as he got out his clean clothes for the day or as he texted Leonard that he was working from home or as he went to the bathroom to shower and change or even as he stood in the doorway eating a bowl of cereal standing up, watching her sleep. What would Amy have done without him?, he wondered. Would she have gone back to her own place and collapsed, covered in the dregs of the ocean and her own blood? Would she had laid on the floor, sobbing as she had sobbed in his arms? One didn't think about superheroes needing help, but it made his heart hurt to think of her somewhere, alone and in pain, dirty and weak. He needed to find something to do other than worry.

Bringing her clothes and various accessories into the living room, Sheldon studied them. Later, he could go down to the basement and wash her underpants and skirt; even if they were ripped, they were all she had to leave in later and they were filthy. Maybe this would convince her to bring some extra clothing. The boots were caked in mud and silt, and he set to work scrapping the worst of it off, washing the heavy red leather, and then polishing them to a shine. After testing the polish on the hand grip, Sheldon applied the same care to her lasso, working hard to remove any small particles of flotsam from its braid.

He kept both ears on any sounds from the bedroom as he cleaned, but there were only the faint sounds of Amy's well-deserved oblivion. After the lasso, he cleaned the blood and fuel from her glasses, going to set them on the nightstand in the bedroom as another excuse to check on her. He had to keep working, keep his body busy, otherwise he would fall asleep and he didn't want to be asleep when she finally woke up.

Returning, he picked up her tiara and he studied it, tilting it in the sunlight from the window so that the center star sparkled. The stone was unusual, ever changing. Sometimes it looked red and sometimes blue and sometimes it glowed white. This, too, he washed and dried. He did the same with her bracelets and her breastplate, running his finger over a dent near the top with a shiver. That was new; it matched the bruise on her shoulder blade. Amy had said it was stronger than anything he knew but not indestructible; his stomach rolled at the thought of anything that could have damaged it so.

Under the kitchen sink he found his bottle of anti-tarnish fluid, and he rubbed each of these metal pieces, nursing them just as he'd nursed Amy last night. These actions did not feel like enough, but they were all he could do. At last, his neck and shoulders sore from bending over them for so long, her armor gleamed and blazed in the sunlight.

He was just admiring his handiwork when he heard her approach. "Amy!" Sheldon took fast steps toward the bedroom door, reaching out to support her. She had found his robe and wrapped herself in it. The bandage from her forehead had been removed, and her skin was smooth and whole where the gash had been. Her ankle, he noticed, was no longer swollen and the bandages hung loose, although she wasn't putting her weight on it when she stopped moving. "You shouldn't be up."

"I had to use the bathroom."

"Oh, yes. Well, back to bed with you. I'll bring you some breakfast there."

"I need to leave. I -" Her eyes were drawn to her armor as it reflected the sun back to them. "You cleaned everything."

"As well as I could. But I still have to wash your skirt."

Amy reached up and rested her palm on his cheek, her green eyes staring into his. She had found her glasses and put them on. With her straight hair and longer robe wrapped around her as a dress, she looked like Dr. Fowler. "Thank you."

"It was my pleasure." And my distraction, he did not add. "Come on, back to bed. I'll make you some food to build your strength. Please."

After a pause, she nodded and he walked with her, tucking her in. There was still a limp to her gait, and a purple-turning-brown bruise when he unwrapped her ankle. But it looked much better. Most of her other contusions were gone. When she asked him to remove the bandage on her arm, the skin was the bright pink puckering of new-born flesh but was no longer burned.

He made her both his famous French toast and eggs for protein and he prepared the strongest, largest mug of tea he owned. Amy ate it all with vigor, even all six eggs which Sheldon had thought he might share with her for lunch. The only pause in her consumption was to demand more butter. When he walked back in the bedroom after carrying the dirty tray to the kitchen, she was already asleep again, still wearing her glasses. He smiled and removed them.

Then Sheldon undressed down to his underpants and crawled in next to her, almost immediately falling asleep next to her warmth.

* * *

"But I saw you laugh!" Sheldon protested, angling closer to Amy in bed. "You said it perfectly captured Batman's personality."

She nodded. "I did and it does. But I still don't understand the concept. Why are those tiny plastics toys of superheroes so popular?"

"Because you can pose them and swap out their parts for different clothes or accessories. It's even possible to create your own new superheroes." After dinner, they'd watched _Lego Batman_ together, and they were discussing the finer points as they undressed and got into bed. Or, rather, Sheldon got undressed. Amy still trotted around his apartment every evening in his pajama top, and Sheldon spent most of the time trying to ignore the creamy length of her legs.

"But why would you want to create your own superhero?" Amy asked.

"Because -" His phone rang, the song his mother's ringtone and he turned to look. "Sorry. Let me get this. It's late there, that's unusual."

The conversation was brief. Mary Cooper called it an emergency that Sheldon's brother-in-law had been in another motorcycle wreck, to which Sheldon rebutted it could no longer be an emergency when it happened every six months, and then his mother told him not talk to her that way.

"Your . . . brother, he is injured?" Amy asked as Sheldon hung up with a deep sigh.

"Brother-in-law, my sister's husband. Only mildly, a sprained wrist. Don't worry, it happens with alarming frequency."

"Tell me about your family."

Sheldon's eyebrows went up slightly, but only in pleasure. Amy had been more inquisitive and talkative since the plane crash last week, and he was finally having exactly the type of conversations he wanted, the chance to get to know each other on a deeper level. He told her about his family, about their various personalities and flaws. The only thing he left out was that his mother believed metahumans were demons sent to Earth as the first sign of an impending Armageddon.

"Fascinating. I cannot imagine so many siblings."

"Only two," Sheldon said. "Will you tell me about your family?"

"There is only my mother, the queen. I am an only child, so she is over-protective. She did not wish for me to leave my home with I did."

"And your father?"

"I don't have a father," Amy said simply.

A single eyebrow went up in disbelief. "That is not possible. Everyone has a father. Do you mean that you never knew him? That he wasn't in the picture since you were an infant?"

"No. I mean I do not have one. My mother so wanted a baby that she formed one out of sand and sang to it until Zeus brought me to life." Amy paused and tilted her head. "Perhaps you would consider him my father as I have inherited some of his powers. But we have never been in contact, and I don't feel any emotional connection to him."

"I want to say that's absurd, but then I live in a world with Aquaman." Sheldon leaned closer, intrigued. So little was known about Wonder Amy's home as she had never spoken about it since the H5V17 virus was blamed on its native flora. "What was it like growing up on Themyscira? What was school like?"

"There was not a school as you think of it. I had private tutors in many different subjects, leaders in their field."

"Because you were a princess? But what about the other children?"

Amy shook her head. "There were no other children, just as there were no men. I was the only child on the island. Just me and my mother and many aunts."

Shifting his legs under the sheets, Sheldon considered this. "I don't understand. Why were there no other children? Because there were no men?"

"Of course." Amy nodded.

"But what about desire - I mean, there was an obvious desire for children, if your mother made you out of sand."

"Yes, even we Amazonians have the desire to procreate," Amy said softly, looking down at the comforter. "But they traded the men necessary for procreation in order to remain hidden and peaceful. And, then, with time, it became apparent that we had traded not just the men, but also the ability to conceive children."

"What do you mean?" Sheldon asked, confused. "Obviously you left to live here among men, where, I don't think I need to remind you, you seem very skilled at using their sexual organs. Surely other women have done so, too."

"Yes, it used to be very common for the women to leave in small parties to find and mate with human men. But no children were ever conceived from these quests." Again, her eyes remained everted and her voice was quiet.

"That doesn't mean it's impossible, though, otherwise you wouldn't have used birth control when we were intimate."

Amy looked over at him. "I didn't use anything to prevent conception."

"What?" Sheldon roared and Amy flinched. He quieted his voice although he kept its steely tone. "What do you mean? I asked you if we needed protection and you said -"

"I said I was prepared. That was true. Because I knew I could not conceive with you."

"But you should have told me!"

"You should have asked for clarification and not assumed it was all my responsibility!" she snapped back. Her emerald eyes burned with frustration, but then she shook it away. "It doesn't matter. I am barren, Sheldon." She looked down again, and her eyes were suddenly sad. "It is the curse of my people. We have our monthly cycles in time with the moon and we celebrate it as a sign that we are women and our bodies are blessed and that we were fortunate enough to have lived another month, but, in private, we mourn what we have lost."

Sheldon opened his mouth and shut it without speaking. He had assumed that she meant that her birth control was already prepared, that perhaps there was a diaphragm already firmly in place. Now he realized not only how stupid he'd been but also how selfish and chauvinist that was. Just because he was a man did not mean he did not have an equal share of the burden to prevent an unplanned pregnancy.

But he did not say that because he had heard the ache in her voice. A pregnancy between them may have been unplanned, but it seemed that Amy would not have found it unwelcome. It crossed his mind that perhaps it had been her original intention that first night, to make him the father of her child, but then he remembered how she stayed, the raw honesty after the peak of their physical pleasure. It had never felt like he was being used. And she kept returning, even after he had told her he didn't want to be intimate with her until . . . well, until.

"Amy," he said softly, "are you sure? If you are half-goddess, can things be different for you?"

Amy shook her head softly. "There is a myth that an Amazonian can only conceive with a human male if the love is pure and selfless and if it endures great tests to prove that. It must be a love so untainted and deep that it would occur and endure in all possible universes, that in every version of themselves the same man and the same woman would find each other. And only then if Zeus smiles upon the union and if Aphrodite blows a wind that opens the womb to receive the gift of a child. But it is only a myth, told to soothe us into believing the only reason the most beautiful and most powerful amongst us could not go away and conceive was because there was not enough time for such a love to develop."

Yes, it had to be a myth, and Sheldon knew it. There was no way Aphrodite could blow a wind that would do such a thing. Not to mention it sounded uncomfortable to one's nether regions.

"Is that why you want to study metahuman sexuality and procreation? I'm certain you will find something, the answer you seek, in that. The answer is always science."

"There is no way to help." Amy pulled the comforter down and crawled under it, turning away from him as she removed her glasses. "Not even science this time, I am sure. There is nothing. I will always be barren. My womb is useless."

"Amy, I . . . " Sheldon sighed softly. He didn't know what to say. As much as he longed for personal and revealing conversations with Amy, he had not anticipated that it would turn out to be so burdensome. Although he had not considered having a child with, well, anyone, now that he knew it was impossible he felt the edge of an ache. But, Amy, poor Amy, was clearly heartsick over the loss.

Licking his lips, he remembered the day Howard had knocked on their lab door, there to show off Halley, and how Amy had scooped her up and played peekaboo with her in the hallway until the infant girl had laughed at her, great gurgling baby laughs. Sheldon had watched her out of the corner of his eye even as he talked with Howard, amazed by the change in her, as her countenance changed from serious and scholarly Dr. Fowler into bright and buoyant Wonder Amy.

Sheldon started again, softly, gently touching her shoulder. "Amy, it doesn't make you less of a person. A woman should not be defined by the status of her uterus. Just because a woman doesn't have a child - by choice or by fate - it doesn't make her less intelligent or less powerful or less of anything at all." He took a deep breath. "It does not change the way I feel about you."

"Maybe not right now. But it will." She reached over and turned off her lamp, plunging them into darkness.

 _To be continued . . ._

* * *

 _ **. . . and sometimes being a superhero - and a woman - is hard.**_

 _ **Thank you in advance for your reviews!**_


	11. Chapter 11

**. . .**

* * *

 **THE WONDER AMY PARADOX**

 **Chapter Eleven**

* * *

"Oh, this is hopeless!" Amy threw down her stylus, reaching up behind her glasses to rub her eyes.

Sheldon looked across the lab table at her. She looked tired. Already she'd left twice that day to photocopy something. "It's just a temporary plateau," he said.

"We don't have time for a temporary plateau! I hear the forensics team is making massive strides."

"So?" Sheldon asked. "Their research -" he waved his hand toward another black binder that had arrived this morning "- has proved useless to us. And why shouldn't it? We're trying to find the underlying scientific cause, they're just looking at a simple criminal matter."

Amy lowered her hands and then stood to turn on a machine on the counter, something he'd never seen her use before, and the room filled with a loud, high-pitched squeal. Sheldon covered his ears, but Amy walked close to him and pulled one of his hands away, whispering in his ear, "Because if they find the perpetrator before we finish, I think they'll shut us down. I don't care what General Bloom says, this is about finding a criminal, not about finding the truth. We're just another means to the same end; it's a race, even if we haven't been told so."

Sheldon frowned and whispered back, "You mean they won't let us finish? They'll just take all this away from us?"

But he knew they would. One day, he and Amy would walk into the lab and it would be just as empty as the lab he'd been given to work on the gyroscope project. All their research and ideas gone like vapor. They'd be left with nothing to show for the weeks of effort they'd put into it. Another incomplete project in his life, another crushing professional loss.

It took a second before he realized Amy hadn't answered, that she was just watching him, her face still very close from their whispering. "This really matters to you, doesn't it?" she asked.

"Of course it does! I want to find the answer just as much as you did. I'm just as much of a scientist as you." It smarted, this faint insult from Amy. Had she really doubted his dedication to the truth, to science, this whole time?

She leaned even closer and grasped his hand. "I did not mean it that way. I know how much you care. I just didn't expect to feel this sad about it ending and then when I saw your face was just as sad . . ." Amy squeezed his hand and he looked down at it. It was the first time she - the Dr. Fowler version of her - had ever touched him like this, here in the lab. Her hands, the same he held on his love seat in the evenings, warmed his skin. Her face so close to his, the feel of her soft breath on his cheek . . . It felt exactly the same and yet radically different.

It occurred to him that if the project ended, he had no excuse to continue seeing Dr. Fowler during the day. Yes, maybe the Wonder Amy-clad version of her would ask to keep coming to his apartment at night, but that's not what he ultimately wanted. He wanted just Amy, the whole and complete version of herself. He now understood that Dr. Fowler was both the key component and the hardest to uncover.

"Amy," he started in rush, not allowing himself to doubt to his words, "I think we should work somewhere else. A new space - just once, to try it - and we'll see if that works. There's been several studies about it, that going to a new environment, taking in new stimuli, can spark creativity."

She frowned. "Maybe it's a good idea, but we can't."

"Why not?"

"Because we're not allowed to take data out of this lab and you know it."

Smiling, Sheldon tapped his temple. "We have my eidetic memory. I'll recreate it if we need it. Besides, maybe it's enough just to brainstorm without the data. Maybe we're getting bogged down in all the binders."

He watched her tilt her head and the play of her lips first one way and then another. "Okay. Where? Your apartment?"

"No." Sheldon shook his head. "Because I'm used to working there. It needs to be a neutral location for both of us." And she would only come there dressed as Wonder Amy. He wanted Dr. Fowler.

"But we can't go to a café or something; this is classified and we can't risk being overheard."

Sheldon took a deep breath. "How about this? Tomorrow evening, we'll meet in Leonard and Penny's apartment. Leonard and the guys will be out at the comic book store, and then they're all going to see a movie. It's a neutral location, it will be private, but it's comfortable and you've been there before, so, um, well, you know." He shrugged.

"But what about Penny?" Amy asked.

"That's the beauty of it. Penny is in Nebraska for the week, visiting her family."

Amy looked down. "I don't know . . . What will you friends say? We talked about this."

"It's been my experience they tend to believe what they want anyway, so I'll tell them the truth: that we're just trying new visual and environmental stimulation to get our mental juices flowing. That we're just professional colleagues working overtime."

She looked up and nodded. "Okay. What time?"

"6:30? I'll provide dinner. And can you shut that thing off? It's starting to make my ears bleed."

* * *

By providing dinner, Sheldon meant that he would make it. He'd already learned about Amy's enormous caloric needs, no doubt necessary to support her metahuman metabolism; to order that much food would be to invite unwanted questions from his friends. He had already endured some teasing from them when they learned of his plans, but they left as promised while he finished the preparations with only a few lewd calls behind them.

Right on time, there was a knock on the door and Sheldon answered it with a smile. "Hello. I'm sure you didn't have any trouble finding it," he said as he reached for some stiff papers he'd already prepared. He held the first one up in front of him, still standing in the doorway, and he pointed to the words written on it.

 **Chit chat, please, while you read these.**

"Um, yes," Amy said, her brow dipping. "I remembered the route."

 **I was going to have the apartment swept for wiretaps.** Sheldon flipped the cards and he watched her eyes moving, then glance up when she finished each placard. "How was the traffic?"

 **But then I decided that if the apartment is bugged, it would be more suspicious if they didn't hear anything.**

"No worse than usual," Amy replied as she read.

 **That's why you haven't jammed the bugs in the lab, correct?**

"Still, it is rush hour. I don't know how far you have to drive," he said, watching her nod in answer to the question on his card. **Since we're just professional colleagues working overtime, there shouldn't be anything to hide.**

"Oh, it's not bad."

Sheldon wasn't surprised she wouldn't give that away. "Good." **So, tonight, you're** **only** **Dr. Fowler. Ixnay onway ethay Onderway Amyway alktay.** "I hope you're hungry."

"You cooked here? And is that homemade bread?" Amy said, lifting her nose to sniff the air even as her eyes remained on the next card, her brow wrinkling. She mouthed silently to him, "Pig latin? Why?"

He flipped another card. **One cannot be too cautious in regards to Onderway Amyway**. "Sourdough. My specialty. You're in for a treat. I asked my MeeMaw for her beef stew recipe. It's been in the slow cooker all day."

First a flash a surprise crossed Amy's face and then she smiled and nodded toward the card she'd just read. But she asked, "Because of how we met?"

 **I knew you'd ask** , said the next card. "Yes. I feel confident you won't spill it on me this time." Sheldon smiled back at her as he revealed the last placard. **Agreed?**

"You cannot be too sure." She gave a mischievous wink, just the kind he often got from her over dinner in the apartment across the hallway. He took it as both a reference to the beef stew and her agreement with his plan.

Sheldon lowered the cards, and held his hand out to toward the kitchen. "Come and eat while it's hot," he gestured and then followed her there.

"Thanking you for cooking for me," Amy said as she sat on one of the stools at the island, already set for the meal. "I'm not worth all this trouble."

"But you are." Their eyes met and softened and Sheldon he felt something pass and contract between them. He cleared his throat and moved toward the refrigerator. "I mean, you work so hard on this project, you need more than a sad cafeteria lunch to keep you going. Here," he sat what he took out of the refrigerator down in front of her, "you seem like the kind of person who feels strongly about her butter."

* * *

"I'm not sure this is working," Amy said with crossed arms, studying Sheldon's equation on the whiteboard. She walked away and picked up another piece of bread, spreading it generously with butter. "Not to mention I'm eating too much."

"No more than usual," Sheldon muttered, watching her. Three bowls of stew and half a loaf of bread was about her average intake by volume.

"What?" she asked with a snap of her head.

"I mean," he turned toward his whiteboard, "no more than most people do when they first taste my bread."

"Hmmmm."

Sheldon capped his marker. "Perhaps you're correct. Some studies recommend a change of location, but other studies suggest taking your mind completely off the problem and doing an entirely unrelated activity."

After a swallow, Amy asked, "What do you have in mind?"

Looking around the apartment, Sheldon considered his options. Most of his hobby supplies had moved with him to his new apartment, and of course Amy hadn't brought any knitting with her.

"We could watch TV or play chess or, oh! Do you like Mario Kart?"

"I've never played it," Amy said as she brushed crumbs off the front of her sweater.

"Let's do that," Sheldon said, moving to the Nintendo Switch to set the game up. "It's easy to learn and it bears no relation to our current project at all. That is, unless you think it's not professional enough."

"Well, this whole evening is an experiment, correct? Let's try it."

"Here," Sheldon said as he sat in his old spot with the controllers, "come sit by me. I'll show you how to play."

Once she'd taken her seat, it occurred to Sheldon that this was exactly where they'd sat that fateful night. Maybe that was a mistake. But Amy took the seat and the offered controller without comment, so he didn't bring it up either.

"Who do you want to be? I'm always Toad," Sheldon explained. He leaned over and pointed to the buttons on her controller. "Keep pressing this and it will scroll through your choices."

"Why are there so few women?" she said with a huff.

"Sorry." Sheldon shrugged. "You can be Daisy."

"Who's this one with the tiara? I want her."

Sheldon slid his eyes over to look at her face but did not comment about tiaras. "Princess Peach."

Once they had selected their cars and tires and their characters were setting at the start line, Sheldon explained which buttons were gas and brake and how to throw the items she may pick up along the way.

Amy started slow and she moved her controller too much which resulted in her car facing backwards. "You have to reverse," Sheldon explained, stopping his own car to help her with the controls. "Here, use this button."

She pressed and moved her controller so much her car did a complete circle in reverse, landing in the same spot again. "Grrrrr. Why can't you get out and just pick up and move the car?"

His eyebrows shoot up. "Umm, because humans don't have the strength for the that."

"But we're not humans in this game, right? At least you're not?"

"Good point. Although I'm a little toadstool, so I wouldn't have the upper body strength of Donkey Kong," Sheldon said. _Or you,_ he added in his head.

Amy's car finally took off in the right direction, and he grinned. "There you go! You got it!" Then his smile fell. "Be careful, there's a red shell ahead."

"What do I do?"

"I'll show you." Sheldon make a sharp curve with his car to get in front of her, making his vehicle a barrier between her and the shell.

"Thank you. Or did you just do that so you could be in the lead?" Amy asked.

The grin returned as Amy plowed through a prize box. Sheldon cheered for her, "You got a star! Good job!"

"What does it do?"

"It makes you invincible. Like a superhero."

"Superheroes are not invincible. Ackk! I'm going to hit you!"

Sheldon pulled his car away just in time and only their wheels met as they skidded around a corner together, flare and sparkles shooting between them on the screen.

"Wow, we generate a lot of sparks," Amy said as she pulled away from him.

"Indeed," Sheldon whispered. Then, louder, "Last lap."

Their cars were driving side by side now; one of them would pull ahead until something would slow them down and allow the other to catch up. Sheldon and Amy, the mushroom and the princess, traveling together, equals among the chaos around them.

"Look out!" Sheldon said when Amy slipped in front of him. "Donkey just threw a blue shell at you! Here, I'll use my mushroom to get in front of you."

He spent the mushroom accelerator he'd been saving for closer to the finish line, and it allowed him to pull in front of her. "Hang back, the blue shell only hits the first driver."

"But -" The spinning of his car as the shell made impact stopped her mid-sentence. "Sheldon, you'll lose now!"

"Go ahead," Sheldon encouraged. "Don't look back, I'll catch up. Don't let Donkey win!"

The finish line was visible now, just around the bend, and Sheldon followed behind Amy's Princess Peach and Donkey Kong, lobbing the two useful items he'd been saving out of his car at Donkey Kong, doing everything he could to make sure she'd win.

Finally he pulled up even with Donkey and he was just about to crash into him, to forfeit his own victory for her when the game stilled. "What happened?"

"I paused it," Amy said. "I don't want it to end like this. I don't want you to sacrifice yourself for me."

Sheldon turned to look at her, and his heart thumped at how sad and serious she looked. He put his hand on her arm. "It's just a game," he said. "We can always play again."

Amy shook her head and fluttered her eyes. "Oh! Of course! What a stupid thing to say; I don't know what I was thinking. I guess I just got caught up in the excitement."

"There's nothing wrong with that. Some things should be exciting, new things." He smiled at her. "Best two out of three?"

"Okay." Amy grinned back. The game started again, and Sheldon scrambled to grasp the controller he had put on his lap.

"Wait! I wasn't ready!"

"Ha! Ha! Got you!" Amy belly laughed as Princess Peach crossed the finish line in front of him, and Dr. Fowler's laugh was most wonderful thing he'd ever heard.

* * *

Less than twenty minutes after he offered to walk Amy to her car and she refused, Sheldon pulled the covers over himself in bed. He watched her go, knowing it was necessary for any eavesdroppers that may or may not be present in Leonard's apartment, and also because Amy still believed her Dr. Fowler half was being followed.

Amy probably wouldn't come after his bedtime, he realized as he shut off his light. Twice previously she'd left for a call, once right after they turned off the lights, and she never returned those nights because she said she didn't want to wake him. In addition, she had to drive home as Dr. Fowler first.

But then Sheldon saw the flash of light beneath the bedroom door, and he raised himself up on his elbow to watch her enter the bedroom.

"Did I wake you?" Wonder Amy asked softly in the dark.

"No." He shook his head. "I was just lying here, thinking." _About you_ , he didn't add.

"Sorry I was late," Amy explained, starting to remove her armor with a yawn.

"I understand," was his simple reply. "Did you have a good evening?"

"It was excellent." His pajama shirt slipped over her head. "I defeated someone new with a toadstool mushroom for a head." She yawned again as she got in next to him and relaxed her head onto the pillow, already shutting her eyes.

"Never heard of him. Sweet dreams." He wrapped his arm around her with a smile.

* * *

Although they may not have made any actual progress on their work that evening, it did serve to lighten the mood in the lab. Sheldon and Amy continued to work as hard as ever, Sheldon perhaps even more so knowing he was counting down the days in Amy's day-time presence, but they talked more as they worked, idle chit-chat, gossip around campus, and professional articles that had caught their attention. They walked to the cafeteria together now, although Amy continued to decline his requests to join him and his friends before returning to the lab alone. Now that he knew she enjoyed her time reading or fighting crime, he let her go with a light heart.

It wasn't quite the in-depth Dr. Fowler experience he wanted, but it was a start, he thought. For both of them. He also noticed Amy was relaxing into Dr. Fowler, becoming bolder even in her non-scientific statements, sarcasm seeping in, and there were several sly smiles and winks. He did not think it was an illusion to believe she was also standing taller, holding her head with more pride and confidence.

About a week later, Sheldon had come back from lunch to find the lab empty, which was not so unusual. In the rare event anyone stopped by looking for her, he would inform them that there was another issue with the copy machine. He sat down to review the newest binder of mindless data; this was a point of disagreement between them. Sheldon thought they were worthless and should be ignored, Amy said any detail or data point could prove to be significant in the end.

He looked up when Amy walked in, not via the back room with an unexplained curl at the end of her ponytail as he expected, but rather from the hallway. She was walking and reading a colorful flyer at the same time.

"Hello," Sheldon said.

"Oh!" Amy looked up, startled. "I'm sorry, I didn't expect you back yet. I must have lost track of time at the Faculty Fun Time Board."

Rolling his eyes, Sheldon said, "Has a better name not yet occurred to anyone? Looks like you found something of interest."

"I did," Amy replied, holding the flyer out to him. "You always want to know more about me. I love these."

Sheldon's eyebrows went up in pleasant surprise at the offer, and he took the flyer and looked down at the image of a young woman twirling wide upon a hilltop, more mountains in the background behind her (Is that why Amy twirled the way she did?, he wondered). He read aloud, "'Come join us for our seventh annual _Sound of Music_ Sing Along Viewing Party! Sunday, November 5th at the historic Alex Theater in Glendale.'" He lowered the flyer. "You can't be serious."

"I am. I haven't had anyone to sing along with when I play my harp since I left home. This is the next best thing. There's one every year at that theater and I've been looking forward to it."

"You take your harp to these?" Sheldon asked, reading the fine print for any mention of that.

"No, of course not. But it's still fun to be with others who enjoy the music as much as I do. I find it infectious and joyful, like playing your video game."

He couldn't help but smile at her. Infectious and joyful, eh? Yes, it had been. Seeing an opening, before he lost his nerve, he grabbed a piece of paper. It occurred to him as either a spark of insanity or the perfect solution to this current paradox.

 **Would you like to go on a date to this sing along viewing party together?**

Amy's brow wrinkled and she snatched up her own piece of paper. **A date? What if someone sees us together?**

She tilted her head and Sheldon's whole world stopped.

 **So what if they do? Why does that frighten you so much?**

But Amy shook her head and said aloud, "I don't know why you're wasting our precious lab time reading the fine print on that silly flyer. We've got work to do."

* * *

Sheldon stopped as he stood up from loading the dishwasher. Amy - the pajama-top-wearing-superhero version of her - was studying the flyer he'd tacked on the refrigerator after work. She was humming a song that sounded suspiciously like _Do-Re-Mi._

"I thought you couldn't risk being seen at such a thing," he asked, bitterness rising in the back of his throat. Having shut him down so forcefully in the lab, Amy hadn't said another word about it all day. And evening. They'd eaten the meal Sheldon had prepared in mostly stilted silence.

"I didn't think you would ever want to go to such a thing," she answered instead.

"I've been promised infectious and joyful." He took a deep breath. "Amy, I think we should go out sometimes instead of spending all our time in. I've accepted your reasoning for not coming here as Dr. Fowler. I've kept my promise not to tell my friends your secret, or even that we see each other outside of work, but . . ." He closed the dishwasher door and pressed the appropriate buttons to buy time. "But I'm not sure this is enough."

"What do you mean?" Amy asked, turning toward him with wide eyes.

"I don't want to argue, but we can't ignore this, either. This -" he waved his hand out to encompass the apartment and her nightshirt "- isn't enough for me anymore."

"But -" Amy started and Sheldon held up his hand to stop her.

"I know. You think you're being followed. And maybe you are. But, even if that's true, why couldn't Dr. Fowler have a relationship and go on dates? We had so much fun playing video games, didn't we? You said so. And that was just Dr. Fowler. Neither one of us mentioned anything about Wonder Amy all evening."

She turned away, resting her hands on the edge of the countertop and looking down at them. "Dr. Fowler has never been on a date before," she said, her voice quiet. "I tired one of those Internet dating sites once and there wasn't a single match for me. There was someone, once, at Harvard, named Faisal, and I thought we might . . ." She took a deep breath and shook her head. "But I discovered his parents would never allow a match between us, so we never went out."

"See?" Sheldon waved his arms. "I just learned that Dr. Fowler went to Harvard, and not just because I saw your diplomas hanging in your lab. And had a crush of someone there. And tried Internet dating, which is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. The algorithms used by those matchmaking sites are complete hokum. Why don't you tell me these things freely?" He stepped closer. "Amy, that's what I want to know. I want to get know you. Just you. And that includes Dr. Fowler. Maybe," he swallowed, "it's just Dr. Fowler." Sheldon reached up to touch her shoulder. "Sometimes I think I see the real you in the lab. Or over dinner. But then you hide behind your armor, telling me that your doing it to protect me or your secret identity. Why won't you let _me_ protect you, just this once?"

Amy turned to look up at him, and Sheldon saw her calculating her answer and he stopped breathing until she answered, "Okay. A date."

 _To be continued . . ._

* * *

 _ **The gameplay for the Mario Kart scene is based almost verbatim on the lyrics from**_ **Mario Kart Love Song** _ **by Sam Hart. If you haven't heard the song before, please go listen to it on YouTube; it's beautiful and perfect in every way.**_

 _ **In addition to my regular and fabulous beta, I also need to thank Regina [rgbcn on Instagram and other social media] for beta reading that section to confirm the gameplay really worked, even without knowing anything else about the story.**_

 _ **Thank you for reviewing; reviews here make my heart so very happy!**_


	12. Chapter 12

**. . .**

* * *

 **THE WONDER AMY PARADOX**

 **Chapter Twelve**

* * *

It flittered across his mind, as he stood in front of the neon spire of the Alex Theater in Glendale, that it could be an unmitigated disaster, far worse than that first night at 4A or the spilled beef stew. There was a possibility, not as infinitesimal as he'd like it to be, that Amy was correct, and that Dr. Fowler was being followed. She could show up and whoever was following would come too, and something out of a James Bond movie could ensue. What, he couldn't speculate on, but it could happen. Or Amy could be panicked and paranoid all evening thinking it would happen, with none of the video game laughter or smiles from the lab. It could be like that scene in the foyer replayed again, only this time with a public audience.

Much more likely, though, was that Amy wouldn't show up, Sheldon thought with a heavy heart. Wonder Amy could appear later, in his bedroom, and claim she'd been called out to a crime. Or not even that. Dr. Fowler could give an excuse that was much more simple; she could just state she'd decided it would be unprofessional for them to socialize in such a fashion. It was the dullest excuse that would hurt the most, he knew.

Yet he refused to lose hope. She said yes, she said she'd come, and he didn't want to think of her as the type of person who broke a promise. Sheldon arrived early because of the bus schedule, and he mostly spent that time watching and wondering what Amy would look like when she arrived. Not Wonder Amy, of course. Wonder Amy only appeared to fight crime and never, ever socialized; she attracted too much attention and they would have no peace. There was a chance it could be a version of Amy he'd never seen before, wearing jeans or some other casual outfit. But it was a slim chance, he thought, not only because he couldn't imagine her in such clothing but also because he knew she wore skirts and long sleeves to hide the majority of her armor.

He'd invited Dr. Fowler, he wanted Dr. Fowler; just the idea of her cardigan made him smile. He found her floral blouses and opaque tights just as attractive as the average man found Wonder Amy's metal bustier and knee-high boots. The idea of spending another social evening with Dr. Fowler, in that attire, on an acknowledged date no less, was what Sheldon was looking forward to the most.

"Sheldon!" He heard her voice call and he turned his head, searching among the evermore crowded sidewalk until he spotted her waving and approaching. His mouth dropped as the sight that met his eyes was so completely unexpected.

Amy was dressed like a nun.

Her habit and wimple were black and wrapped snug around her face, hiding every bit of hair and even her forehead, only her glasses and her flashing emerald eyes setting her apart. There was not a single clue about which Amy was under that heavy floor-length costume. There could be a sweater or armor, orthopedic shoes or high-stepping boots.

"Why the surprised face?" she asked when she finally reached him.

"You're wearing a costume," he said. It was too obvious to say, but at least it reminded him to close his mouth.

"People often dress up as characters from the movie for these sing alongs," she said with shrug. "Look!," she pointed, "there's a couple dressed as Rolf and Liesl."

Instead of looking at the couple in question, Sheldon looked down at her with grin so wide it was almost painful. Amy had out-smarted him. And whoever she believed was following her. It was a brilliant move, a checkmate in this little game they'd been playing, the one in which she didn't want Dr. Fowler to be seen out in public with him and he did. Amy had found a solution he'd never considered instead. He'd been bested by her imaginative thought process, and he never found her as attractive as he did in that moment. Nun's habit or not.

"What?" she asked when she turned back, smiling coyly herself.

"I love it," he answered. And he did. He bit off telling her it was well-played. She no doubt already knew that; he'd learned that she was just as calculating as he.

She leaned very close, standing on her tiptoes, whispering in his ear, barely audible over the swell of people on the sidewalk and the traffic going by, "Ixnay onway ethay Onderway Amyway alktay. Let's not talk about work, either; it's classified. Consider this costume your visual reminder."

"Of course not," he murmured back. "No superheroes, no monkeys."

Amy pulled back and said, "Tonight, I'm just Amy."

The feeling that passed through his veins and heart at those words was far stronger than anything superpowers or radioactive isotopes could have wrought. If the rest of the evening turned out to be a disaster complete with super villains and mutant monkeys, that alone would have made it perfect. He gestured toward the theater. "Well, just Amy, shall we? I need to get Red Vines before it starts."

* * *

It wasn't a disaster at all.

Infectious was right there among _My Favorite Things._ Amy's eyes danced at the movie, she sang loud and beautifully, and she smiled at Sheldon when he joined in. They laughed at the antics of some in the crowd, they shared popcorn, and then, when the Nazis showed up, Amy wound her arm around his and pressed her hand into his palm. Sheldon had never been so sad to see World War II end in his life.

"Did you like it?" Amy asked as they left the theater.

"I did. It was wonderful."

"Next time, you should wear a costume, too. We'll plan it so we match."

 _Next time._ His heart rose like a helium balloon. "I'd like that."

Coming out into the night air, they stood facing each other under the bright white lights of the marquee. Sheldon knew the evening was drawing to a close, but he didn't want it all to end. "Thank you. I had a wonderful time." But then he regretted repeating himself.

"I guess this is goodnight." "Would you like some ice cream?"

They chuckled in that way one often does after speaking at the same time as someone else. "I know it's late," Amy said, "but there's an ice cream shop a couple of blocks from here that I like."

"Very well." How did she know this area so well? Was it possible that her lair - or just her regular apartment - was located somewhere nearby?

They walked in silence for a minute, until Sheldon felt brave enough to reach for her hand again. She looked over with a shy smile but didn't drop it. But then Sheldon saw a man approaching them giving them a strange look, and then he barked at them, "Where's the respect?"

"What was that about?" Sheldon whispered to Amy after they'd passed him.

"I think it's my costume." Amy huffed and she let go of his hand. "Don't people know that love is love?"

Sheldon looked sharply at her, his eyebrows dipping in confusion, and she glanced back at him with an amused smile. Oh, it was a joke.

"I guess not." So much for sharing a milkshake with two straws. Not that he planned on it anyway, trading backwash and germs like that, but he wanted it to be his choice for hygienic purposes and not the assumptions of strangers.

There were funny looks at the ice cream parlor, too, but nothing serious. They sat down to lick their cones, the interior harshly bright after the gentle dimness of the movie. Neither of them spoke, Sheldon feeling awkward to be sharing ice cream on a date with a nun, even though she wasn't.

"Which was your favorite song?" he tried.

" _Do-Re-Mi_."

Oh, yes, he knew that. Stupid question. "Is your favorite character Maria?"

"No." A lick of her cone, the flash of her pink tongue against the soft yellow of her lemon sorbet. "Captain von Trapp."

"Really? Why?"

"He's so staid and serious. That whistle! He just needs the right woman to show up at his door and teach him how to loosen up. Plus, he has great eyes."

"Hmmm." Sheldon considered this as he chewed a bite of waffle cone. "I think Maria needs him, too, yes? Someone to accept her just as she is, quirks and all."

Their eyes met over their respective ice creams, and Sheldon had that feeling again, of something both pulling between them and braiding itself back together.

But then Amy blinked, leaned forward, and whispered, "Look at that man's shirt. Over there, the gray tee shirt." Sheldon swiveled his head. "That's the flag of the Philippines, but it's upside down. The red field should only be on top -"

"- during a time of war. Otherwise, the blue field should be superior," Sheldon finished for her, looking at her in wonder. "You like flags?"

Sitting back in her chair, Amy said, "Vexillology is a minor hobby of mine. I find the symbolism interesting."

"I, too, enjoy vexillology." Sheldon grinned. "I've often considered starting a webcast on the subject, but I think it would be more enjoyable for viewers if I had a partner."

And that's when joyful found him. They sat and talked at the ice cream parlor long after everyone else had left, even as the staff cleaned and swept around them, leaving only when they were asked to do so, just before the lights were turned off and the door was locked behind them.

It wasn't only that it was unsafe to bring up Wonder Amy's heroics or the work in the lab with Dr. Fowler with strangers present, it was that he found he didn't need to. There were so many other topics to discuss, and, just as Sheldon had suspected from the very first, they found so many commonalities. Amy, this Amy, was more similar to him than anyone he'd ever met.

She got all his jokes and references, and she told fascinating stories of her own. They were often in agreement on issues, although, if they weren't, he found her opinions passionate and unrestrained. She did not mince words with him, about him, for him, and it was the most refreshing thing he'd ever known. Sheldon did not have to question how Amy felt and why.

There was all the strength and wry banter from Wonder Amy tempered by the kindness and patience of Dr. Fowler. She was an amalgamation of all that was good from both women, neither too bold nor too shy, although, Sheldon noticed with pleasure, erring on the bold side. And there, the primary thread running through their discourse, was her intelligence. Her brain behind that wimple was even more beautiful than the one behind her tiara or under her ponytail.

It was impossible to see her as either just a superhero or just a scientist, or even a nun; all of those versions of her faded in the background and mixed into one. She was, at last, just Amy.

A glance at his watch surprised him, for it was well past midnight. Desperate to prolong the night, he offered to walk her to her car, wondering if she'd decline so that she could run or fly off without him. Instead, she consented as long as he agreed to let her drive him home. Disappointed that she drove a plain gray sedan and not something like the Batmobile, he nonetheless snatched up the opportunity to continue their conversation. But they arrived at his apartment far too soon, and Amy pulled the car to a stop in front of his building, the engine still idling.

"Thank you for coming," he said. "I had a wonderful time." Wonderful, again. Why couldn't he think about another word?

"Me, too," Amy agreed. "I'm glad the movie wasn't too silly for you."

"Oh, it was. But, well, there were compensations."

Amy blushed in a soft manner, the dim glow of the street lamp shining in the windshield making her look especially beautiful.

Sheldon took a giant gulp of air and licked his lips. "Would you like to come upstairs for a nightcap?"

Her eyebrows shot up, so far they were hidden beneath the wimple, and he heard her suck in her breath. "You do know that's a euphemism, right?"

His heart plummeted; he shouldn't have asked. What was he thinking, being so brazen, especially in such a tenuous situation? He'd gone all night without saying the wrong thing, just to forfeit it all now. But he never believed in lying. "Yes. I've heard Howard talk about it. It's what, um, I meant."

But then her face relaxed and she smiled in that coy fashion she shared with Wonder Amy. "I don't think I could in this costume."

He hadn't considered that. While it was true he wasn't a religious man, there was an element of distaste to the idea. "Perhaps you're right," he mumbled, putting his hand on the latch to the door.

"And it's too late," Amy continued, stopping him. "You need your sleep for work tomorrow. I only need five hours."

"Five hours of sleep?" Sheldon's head turned back to her.

Amy nodded. "It's why I leave every morning. To let you sleep in silence."

"You mean . . ." His brow furrowed. "You're not leaving because you're sick of me? Or ashamed of me? Or . . ."

"Oh, Sheldon, no. I think of you long after I leave. If you'd prefer, I will begin staying. But next time." She reached out and rested her palm on his cheek and he smiled at her. "Goodnight, then."

"Goodnight." Sheldon opened the car door and stepped out onto the sidewalk, but, just before he was about to swing the door shut, Amy called, "Oh, and Sheldon?"

He bent at the waist to peer into the car, Amy looking at him over her shoulder, illuminated by the dome light. "Yes?"

"But maybe . . . next time . . . when I do come up . . . you'll be the only one wearing the costume?" She winked, a smooth perfect movement of her eyelashes.

Dumbstruck by the meaning, Sheldon nodded like a fool and shut the car door before he was tempted to crawl back in and kiss her anyway, no matter what she was wearing or who saw them. With a last wave, Amy drove away, leaving him staring after her from the sidewalk.

* * *

Wonder Amy didn't come that night, which Sheldon both expected and understood. Instead, he lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling in his dark bedroom replaying it all in his mind. He hadn't planned on asking her to come up, but it had spilled out, his deepest desire making its way to the surface like a geyser that could no longer be contained. He had shared such a powerful intellectual intimacy with her tonight, similar to and yet far greater than that he shared with either Wonder Amy or Dr. Fowler. It had been growing softly between them lately, he realized, this unspoken connection of their thoughts, as their conversations smoothly slipped together and connected the days to the nights. Gone were the obvious and manufactured links as in the early days, such as when Sheldon bought the Wonder Amy-half books that the Dr. Fowler-half mentioned she liked; instead they'd been replaced by the ease and contentment of two people whose minds had found a mutually satisfactory place to dwell together.

But it was for the best she'd declined, for it had been a mistake to ask. Because if Amy had come up, there'd be only one way the night would end, only one other type of intimacy that would complete the evening, and it was too early. No, it was for the best that he was alone. He needed to hear the words from her first.

But he wanted that Amy in his apartment. That Amy to undress. He wanted to make love to that Amy.

* * *

Gagging his way through another binder of recovered data from the forensics team, Sheldon sighed. He'd always hated this task, but now it made him especially restless. Amy was working at her desk, her serious Dr. Fowler face on, but, instead of chatting with her, he was expected to read - what was this again? - the food consumption log of the monkeys.

The day had passed without mention of their date night. It wasn't that her demeanor had changed, per se; she was still the pleasant but professional Dr. Fowler she had been before. There were still the enjoyable tangents of conversation and the walk to the cafeteria together. Occasionally, she somehow found ways for her hand to brush innocently against his, and Sheldon lived for those seconds.

But the longer Sheldon struggled with how to broach the topic of the movie, the less courage he seemed to have. He wanted to, and he didn't care if the government heard. She practically promised to come up to his apartment dressed as Dr. Fowler. Would it be tonight? If not, when? Surely that would make their relationship public knowledge. As he felt no closer to solving this mutant monkey problem, he didn't want to spend the next several weeks or even months pretending he wasn't dating his colleague. And engaging in coitus with her.

He gulped at that thought.

No. No coitus until they talked. Until he was certain he'd uncovered just Amy.

Realizing he'd been staring at her, Sheldon returned to the binder with a shake of his head. First, the binder. Then he would apply himself to the Amy paradox. He flipped the black book over, deciding that maybe if he worked backwards it would inspire something in him, the same way various studies proved that performing a task with one's non-dominant hand could increase the size of one's corpus callosum, thus sparking creativity and wisdom as the two halves of the brain worked better together.

With another sigh of disgust, Sheldon flipped through several pages, nothing catching his eye until -

"Amy!" he called, reading the column again. "Your name is in here!"

She swiveled sharply in her chair. "It is? Which binder is that again?"

"The food consumption log. Here, it says that you fed the monkeys for three straight days in January." He angled the binder closer even though it wasn't likely she could read it from that distance.

"Oh, yes, I remember that," she said.

"But I thought you said you didn't work with monkeys. You told us that when we were asking that night you came over for . . . um, for Chinese food," Sheldon finished in a mumble.

"I normally didn't. But everyone who usually fed the test animals was out with the Themysciran flu. Remember, that big outbreak after Christmas, when people where having parties to get it and avoid going back to work after the holidays?" She shrugged. "We were short staffed."

"What were they like?" Sheldon asked. "The monkeys, not your irresponsible former coworkers."

"Then? Well, like normal monkeys. That was a full two months before the explosion." She paused. "Actually, they were sweet. I've always enjoyed primates. Several years ago, I did a study on addiction with a different set of monkeys. This whole thing," she frowned, "it's sad, really. They had names and their researchers probably loved them in a way. It hurts that they had to die in the way they did."

Sheldon swallowed. "But Wonder Amy had to catch the monkeys after they escaped and blew up the lab. They would have terrorized the city."

"I know. They had mutated, they had become dangerous. I understand that. But that doesn't mean that it's not unfortunate. At least Wonder Amy just caught them and didn't have to put them down herself." Amy took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. "Enough about that. Back to work."

He nodded and returned to the binder, skimming the log again. While he knew that failure to save lives made her understandably sorrowful, he felt insensitive that he'd never considered if Amy, as a superhero, had to do things she found distasteful or difficult emotionally in other ways. It must have been very taxing for her to bottle all that discord up, to have no one to share it with.

But now she had him; he'd be happy to listen to her talk about it and vent her emotions. Frowning, he looked up again. She did know that, right? It seemed like it last night, when they'd connected so deeply. But he needed her to say something, anything, to make it clear she would accept a whole life with him, not one divided between Dr. Fowler and Wonder Amy.

With another deep sigh, he looked back down at the binder, flipping to the next page with a loud noise. And then he pulled it closer, to read the notes again.

"Hey, look at this." He got up out of his chair now and carried the binder over to her.

"I promise, I only feed them for three days."

"No, not that. Look here." He pointed at the notes. "This lab assistant noted that the monkeys were eating faster and becoming agitated a couple of hours before their meals. Look, does this note say 'Increased appetite?'"

Amy pulled the binder closer and squinted to read the sloppy handwriting herself. "I think it does." She looked up at the date. "But this is still January, the week before I feed them. That's far earlier then it's believed the mutations started. We're operating under the hypothesis that the mutations started in February. Remember? I explained this. The last bit of raw data that wasn't destroyed by the monkeys on their rampage is dated February 17th when a researcher first noticed the small bumps forming on their heads that we know later grew into their horns. If we reasonably postulate a sub-epidermal incubation period for the bud, that's still too early to be of importance."

"But what if it wasn't?" Sheldon watched her quickly flip the pages.

"There's no other mention of an increased appetite. And they seemed perfectly normal when I feed them the week after that." She pushed the binder back to him and pulled something up on her computer. "Look, that is a temporary lab assistant, hired from a temp agency to help with the staffing shortage, at least until he came down with the flu himself. He probably just didn't understand them correctly. _I_ didn't notice anything amiss."

Sheldon chewed on his lower lip. Amy was probably correct. He was willing to admit she knew far more about all of this than he did: test animals, primates in general, how the staffing at UCLA worked, the biology of appetites. If she discounted it as irrelevant, then it probably was. But something about the note in the log bothered him, although he was at a loss to explain why.

"Actually," Amy stood and took the binder from his hands, setting it behind her on her desk, "I have something unrelated to say to you. It's not about this Task Force at all. It's about . . . last night."

The mutant monkeys flew out of his brain as though they were from the _Wizard of Oz_.

"Alright." Sheldon's mouthed dried out as his heart beat the front of his chest like a drum. She hadn't written a note or turned on that deafening machine again. This was it, the moment he'd been waiting for; Amy was going to look him straight in the eye and say, 'I want to date you as Dr. Fowler, and I don't care who knows.'

"I wanted to show you what I do with my time . . . before work every morning. I made you something." Amy bent down to open her lower desk drawer.

"What is it?" he asked, trying not to sound disappointed. Maybe it was the never-before-seen flag of Themyscira and that's how she'd tell him. Oh, that'd be even better.

She passed a gift bag to him. "Open it."

After pulling out the tissue paper, Sheldon reached into the bag and took out something colorful and soft. Holding it up, some of it fell away from him, cascading down and pooling on the floor.

"It's a Doctor Who scarf!" Amy explained needlessly, but when he looked over at her grin he didn't mind in the least. "I know it's personal and we agreed to be professional here in the lab, but I knew you had the whole series on Blu-Ray and I like to knit and well . . ."

"But -" Sheldon stopped himself. He'd never once told Dr. Fowler that he owned the entire series of _Doctor Who_ on Blu-Ray. In fact, the only way she knew was when she inspected his collection to find something to watch. In his apartment. Was this her way of letting the truth slip to their eavesdroppers? He admired her calm demeanor, how easily she'd handed him what he most wanted. He wanted to tell her how that made him feel, as though she understood the words he didn't utter. She said it as if it was the most natural thing to her, and that's exactly how he wanted it to be. But what if it was just a little error, a tiny slip of the tongue she'd regret later?

"This must have taken you a very long time," he said instead. His fingers brushed an especially soft patch of scarf and he looked down. It was the purple yarn he'd bought her to replace her cardigan. Something about it made his eyes sting.

"Do you like it?" Amy asked softly, and she stepped closer, her eyes concerned. "Are the colors not in the correct sequence?"

"It's perfect," he said with a swallow. "Amy, I love it." He pulled one end around the back of his neck as he licked his lips. There was only way to find out if he was reading the situation correctly. He spoke loudly and clearly, enunciating every word for whoever might be listening, "How about, this evening, I make dinner and wear the whole Fourth Doctor costume and you, Dr. Fowler, come over to my apartment for a date?"

"There's nothing Dr. Fowler wants more." Her smile eclipsed all he'd ever known. It was brighter than lights of the marquee at the Alex Theater, brighter than the flash when she twirled, brighter than her armor glinting in the sun, even brighter than his whiteout the first time they'd made love.

Sheldon bent down and pressed a kiss to her cheek, but then pulled away quickly. "I'm sorry, that was inappropriate, we're at work, I'm just so -"

Then her hands were on the side of his face, and she pulled him down and kissed him hard. It was everything the kisses from Amy had always been, both a contradiction and an explanation all wrapped up into one, and he wrapped the scarf around her waist to pull her in tighter. Still she didn't let go, and he moaned as her hot, sweet tongue found its way into his mouth. He returned her passion with gratitude and he explored her mouth, grabbing a handful of her bottom through her lab coat without regrets or misgivings.

Finally, panting, Amy pulled away and looked up at him, her pupils wide and her lips damp. They were still encircled by the scarf, entangled in all its meanings. She leaned in close again, pulling him down, but bypassed his lips to put her mouth to his ear.

She whispered in a voice so quiet he barely heard it, "Sheldon, there's something else. I think, before tonight, before this goes any further, there's something I need to tell you, about why I've been so frightened, about what I'm hiding from. Let's go for a walk, get out of this room -"

"Amy Farrah Fowler -" Sheldon yelped and dropped his hands as the door burst open and Major General Riley Bloom entered without knocking.

"What's going on?" he asked but was ignored as a dozen men in camouflage and uniforms swept in behind the General.

"- you're under arrest for the creation of non-registered meta-species resulting in the vandalism and arson of a public university. -"

"WHAT?!" Sheldon roared as the other men filled every corner the lab, their black vests labeling them as FBI. "Under arrest? What are you talking about?"

The lone FBI-vest clad woman tugged on Amy's arm, and Sheldon grabbed the other one to keep her close. "Amy, what's happening?"

"- You have the right to remain silent and refuse to answer questions. -"

Amy pushed Sheldon's hand off of her and let the officer pull her away. He looked at her, incredulous. "What are you doing? Tell them they've got it all wrong!"

"- Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. -"

There were the sharp sounds of the handcuffs being secured behind her back and Sheldon just kept staring at her. She could have broken them with a flick of her wrist and she didn't even try. "Tell them there's been a mistake," he pleaded softly.

"- You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking and to have an attorney present during questioning now or in the future. -"

The scarf fell from her waist, and Major Bloom stepped on the end as Amy was marched toward the door.

"- If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish."

"Amy?" Sheldon called, throwing the other end of the scarf off his neck as he followed her.

As she was led away, Amy twisted and looked back over her shoulder at him, a cruel mockery of every time she'd done it before.

"It's okay, Sheldon. At least you know now," she whispered and her damp eyelashes descended, just before a single tear fell from her beautiful emerald eyes.

 _To be continued . . ._

* * *

 _ **Thank you in advance for your reviews!**_


	13. Chapter 13

. . .

* * *

 **THE WONDER AMY PARADOX**

 **Chapter Thirteen**

* * *

314.

After all those months of speculation, it turned out Wonder Amy's lair was a drab apartment building in Glendale. Sheldon stood in front of her door, again unsure if this was right thing to do all while knowing that it was the only thing to do.

3.14 . . .

The first three digits of pi. There was some sort of mathematical perfection in that, that the epicenter of his heart and mind's desire should hide behind a mysterious yet sublime sequence of numbers. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath and raised his fist to knock.

Amy answered with an unreadable face, and he thought she looked thin and pale. She was dressed like Dr. Fowler. Even though he swore he would ignore it, even though it was in poor taste, his eyes immediately went to the black box strapped to her ankle, a green flashing light sending out her location to the authorities.

"Sheldon? What are you doing here?" But there was no fight in her voice.

"You wouldn't return my texts. Or calls. Even the letter I sent in the mail to you. It's been a month," he explained.

She looked away. "You shouldn't have written. My mail is being monitored."

"I presumed as much, so I only asked you to call me at your earliest convenience." He did not add that he thought a person on house arrest would have frequent convenience. "Have you not yet received it from the police?"

"I got it."

"Please, Amy, may I come in?" He lifted the sack in his hand up higher. "I brought you some things."

Finally, she relented and opened the door wider. It wasn't a lair at all. It was a simple and clean apartment, filled with books and little tchotchkes about the brain and half-burned candles and an afghan draped over a tan love seat.

Sheldon followed her to that love seat and sat down uneasily next to her. She just looked at him, and he reached into the bag and pulled out the first item. "This isn't from me, but Penny insisted I bring it along."

Amy took the tee shirt and unfolded it. Sheldon winced at seeing it for the second time; he should have defied Penny and made some excuse. The shirt had Wonder Amy on the front and it said "Fight Like a Girl!" in bright red print.

"Ironic," Amy murmured, setting it aside.

"Here." Sheldon passed her a stack of paperbacks out of the bag. "The rest of the Tea Shop Mysteries. I hope you don't have a Kindle lying around here somewhere and you've downloaded them already."

"Thank you," Amy said, taking the books from him. "I don't. My credit card has been frozen, so I can't order anything."

"Oh." He flushed at his gaffe. "And these." He passed over the next item.

" _The Waltons_?" She looked up with confusion from the Blu-Ray package.

"You've seen all of _The Little House on the Prairie_ , so, um . . ." He shrugged. "I'm sorry, it's a bad idea."

"No. I haven't seen it in years. Thank you."

"Some tea and a loaf of homemade bread." Sheldon took the last two items out of his bag. "If you need anything else, I could bring it another day. Or even today. It's only a little after ten, I could go to the grocery store and bring provisions back. Are you getting enough to eat?"

"I appreciate this, Sheldon, but I don't think you should come again," Amy said softly, looking down to smooth her skirt.

"Why not? I confirmed with Major Bloom that you could have visitors."

Amy shook her head but didn't answer.

An idea suddenly struck Sheldon, and he reached for a pad of paper and pen that were lying on the coffee table. Quickly, he wrote a note and passed it over to her.

 **Is your apartment bugged?**

"No." Sheldon raised a questioning eyebrow. "I'm sure. My lawyer's been here and that would illegal. Plus I installed jammers ages ago."

"Then tell me why I can't come, why you won't speak to me. Friends should support each other through hard times. Are we not friends, at least?"

"Oh, Sheldon." Amy looked up at him sadly. "We were. But it was all a fallacy, an illusion, don't you see that?"

"It didn't feel like an illusion. My emotions are _not_ a fallacy."

Amy closed her eyes and whispered, "Nor mine." But then she straightened her shoulders. "But I'm a criminal now. I'm under house arrest. You need to forget me and go on with your life. It's for the best."

"I'll never forget you. I don't _want_ to forget you." Sheldon cleared his throat. "Amy, I think it's time that we speak with honesty and transparency. I have so many questions about - about, well, everything, but first I want to know if the news is correct. Are you really planning on pleading no contest to the charges?"

"Yes. Surely you've read them; the forensics team uncovered my fingerprints and DNA all over the monkey lab. I'd rather get it over with than have a lengthy trial. It's bad enough the government is insisting on a grand jury hearing, putting my name in the news that long."

"Amy," Sheldon leaned forward, "why don't you just tell the truth, tell everyone that you're Wonder Amy? Explain to them that's why your fingerprints and DNA are there, they got there when you went in to capture the monkeys. Prove to them you're innocent, do your twirl, show them your power! Then this can all be over. The world needs you. Please don't make me cite the statistics about increased crime since they slapped that anklet on you."

"No!" Amy turned away from him. "I can't let anyone else know."

"Why not? What about Iron Man and Thor and the Hulk? Everyone knows who they are."

"Don't you see what they've become?" she asked sharply, turning back. "Iron Man is an ego-manic, Thor is constantly hiding away back on Asgard because he's so overwhelmed with the publicity, and the Hulk is clinically depressed with anger management issues." Her voice softened. "I don't want that life, Sheldon. I want to do my science and be known for my brain. I want to go home at the end of the day and knit and read. I wish I'd never become Wonder Amy!"

It was the crack Sheldon had been waiting for, and, as Amy broke down sobbing, he wondered if it was the release for which she'd been waiting, too. He reached for her, pulling her in close to him, holding her as she cried, running his palm down her straight hair. Twice now he'd held her like this, once because Wonder Amy wasn't enough and once because Wonder Amy was too much.

"Shhh, it's okay, I'm here," he soothed. "Amy, will you tell me the whole story, from the very beginning? From when you left Themyscira?"

Amy nodded, her cries calming and she pulled away from him. Sheldon reached for the box of tissues on the end table and handed her one.

"I suppose I owe you that, at least." She did, but she looked too sad for Sheldon to agree aloud. "I left Themyscira to study at Harvard. Even with all my tutors and knowledge, it is still an island locked in time, from the moment the veil was created."

"How did you get into Harvard?"

"That was easy. We falsified documents, said I was home schooled by a religious cultist mother who locked me in a sin closet. Anyway, I went as Amy Farrah Fowler. I was just supposed to get an education and return to modernize my home. But I loved it, Sheldon, all of it. The studies, the science, the people, the excitement of this world. All of it except the crime. I had all this strength and power that I'd been hiding, and one Halloween I dressed as a modified version of Columbia, and, on the way back from a party, I stopped a mugging. It was the answer I'd been looking for, a way to make a difference, to use my powers, to have a reason to stay."

"But you said your armor is from Themyscira," Sheldon pointed out.

"It is. I still go home to visit sometimes. My mother is overprotective but she understands this is my path. My aunts made my armor." Amy took a deep breath. "I thought I could just be a scientist who occasionally fought crime and no one would know. But the public loved Wonder Amy, they clamored ever louder for Wonder Amy. Wonder Amy, Wonder Amy, Wonder Amy! At first it was fun, all the attention. But I was so worried about revealing my powers or giving away my secret as Dr. Fowler, that she became more withdrawn and shy. And then Wonder Amy grew bigger and bolder; it's actually easier to be her, to project a confidence even if I don't feel it, to know exactly what people expect of me. But Dr. Fowler has to be quiet, she has to bottle things up. I don't know how it happened, exactly, it seemed so gradual. It wasn't until you came along, asking me to be Dr. Fowler, that I realized how different the two halves had become. How frightened and skittish Dr. Fowler had become. Now there's no way back except for Wonder Amy to disappear along with Dr. Fowler in prison." Her voice broke again at the end of her tale.

Sheldon shook his head. "I don't believe that. Remember when I said I'd help hold you when it got too heavy? I meant it. I still do. Let me in. Let me help you, shield you. We'll buy a guarded compound, and Leonard and Penny can live in the basement. You can have your own lab there, if you want, and you can knit on our sofa. It will be like our own self-sufficient commune but better because we aren't hippies."

"It doesn't work that way,"

"Why not let me try, at least?" Sheldon pleaded. He reached for her hand. "Amy, I love you. Let me help you, support you. With this trial and everything else. I've seen her. The real the Amy; not just Wonder Amy or just Dr. Fowler, but just Amy. She's amazing and strong and intelligent and kind all on her own. That's the Amy I love." He took a deep breath and decided to ask the hardest question of all. "Amy, what exactly were you planning for us? You said you came on a whim because you had a crush on me after reading my articles, but that it meant more to you than you expected and that's why you stayed the night and then returned. But . . . did you ever intend for it to be permanent?"

Amy reached up and wiped her eyes again. "At first, I honestly don't know. I guess I thought as long as you didn't know who I was, that you'd just accept a superhero by night. But then you figured it out and . . . and you were kinder than I deserved. You were genuinely interested in Dr. Fowler, in the real _me._ You showed me it was possible, maybe, to have a boyfriend, which I'd given up on. So, finally, the night of the movie, I made up my mind that you were right, that we could be together, that we'd find a way to make it permanent."

"But then they came and arrested you," Sheldon murmured and Amy nodded. Sheldon squeezed her hand. "I agree these charges are a significant obstacle, but I still think we could get you off if you'd only work at it. And then we could be together."

"I could not ask you, expect you, want you!, to ever live your life with me," Amy said, wiping her eyes. "Don't you see? It's too dangerous. The arrest just made me realize I was right in the beginning, that it was stupid of me to think I could have a normal love life. When I let it slip that my island was undiscovered, that it's called Themyscira, so many people set out to find it. The ocean was clogged with explorers who wanted to exploit it; my mother and aunts were terrified that that veil wouldn't hold, that they would destroy our paradise island, or, worse, that they'd be harmed."

Sheldon wrinkled his brow; yes, he remembered that now, hearing it on the news in the background. "I don't want to harm or exploit your home. I'm not even asking to ever go there, unless you want me to. I would be happy to live here with you."

Amy shook her head. "You don't understand. That's only part of it, Sheldon. Someday, I will die. There will be a villain or a disaster stronger than me and I will lose. It will not be a peaceful death; it will be gruesome and excruciating. I care about you too much to put you through that, to allow you to live your life in fear of that day."

"Someday we will all die."

"Oh, yes, of course. I could die tomorrow as Amy Farrah Fowler, in a traffic accident." And then she laughed in a harsh, manic way, pulling her hand away. "Or, more likely, I will die in prison, shivved in my sleep. Is that what you want? Conjugal visits? At least you won't have to worry about your baby being born in prison, because they'll never be a baby!"

"Amy, stop it!" Sheldon grabbed her by the arm and shook her gently. "How is that any different from you loving me? All those things you could die from as Dr. Fowler, _I_ could die from tomorrow. Except getting shivved in my sleep. Although, maybe I should change my locks . . ." He shook his head. "Don't you understand? I am willing to risk that ultimate broken heart because it is only with you that my heart is whole."

She lowered her head and her shoulders sagged. "That's the most wonderful thing anyone's ever said to me, but I won't let you endure that. Just like when we played that video game, you can't sacrifice for me. It's too late, Sheldon."

"But why?" he asked again. "So we won't reveal you're Wonder Amy. It was just an idea. We'll find another way to prove your innocence and then we can live peacefully in secret. I'll never tell, I promise. Or you could give up being Wonder Amy all together. We'll just live a perfectly normal life as scientists."

"But you said the world needs Wonder Amy," she pointed out softly.

"Remember what I said to you even before I knew you were Wonder Amy? I said that I liked you best when you were just Amy, and I mean it even more now. I like you best when we talk and we laugh and share little moments in the evening." He paused. "Here, I'll prove it to you." He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and held it up so that she could see the screen, too. He located Amy Farrah Fowler among his contacts and played the ring tone he'd selected for her. Not that she'd ever once called him.

 _I need a hero  
_ _I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night  
_ _She's gotta be strong, she's gotta be fast  
_ _And she's gotta be fresh from the fight_

 _I need a hero  
_ _I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light  
_ _She's gotta be sure, she's gotta be soon  
_ _And she's gotta be larger than life, larger than life_

Amy looked over at him, her eyes wide. "Look." Sheldon deleted the ring tone, right there on the screen in front of her. "You don't have to be Wonder Amy for me. I'm holding out for you now. Just you. The real you."

"You think you want just Amy, but just Amy is an empty husk."

"No, she's isn't." Sheldon shook his head. "Just Amy is not a diminutive, just Amy is a classification. Just Amy is all the best parts of Wonder Amy and Dr. Fowler, free from expectations and contradictions, free to be herself. Just Amy is beautiful and confident and smart and so much more than either just Wonder Amy or just Dr. Fowler."

She stared at him for a moment, and then she turned away. It was a lengthy pause, and Sheldon thought she was gathering herself to turn around and accept his offer.

Finally, she did turn around, but her mouth was a firm, grim line. "Sheldon, it's too late for me, no matter who I am. It's too late because it's true. I _am_ guilty. I created the monkeys."

"What? Wait, what?" Sheldon pulled his head back.

"It was an accident. I was looking for a way to correct it, to set them free, to take them back to the jungles of Themyscira, where they could live out their lives. I didn't realize they'd become so violent and strong, that they'd get out on their own and destroy the building before I could. I was too late."

"No." Sheldon shook his head. "I don't believe it. You're hysterical or over-tired or losing your mind in the solitary confinement of this apartment. Have they brain washed you? The government? Is this some kind of Stockholm syndrome?"

"It's the truth!" Amy took a deep breath. "I started using the photocopying excuse at UCLA because I had a lab mate. He was working on the proton radiation study, so he never seemed to notice if I didn't return quickly because he was with the monkeys or at the actual cyclotron. But I made it a point to always come and go past the workroom with a stack of papers just in case. One day, he almost caught me coming out of the janitor's closet, and I was flustered and dropped the scrap paper I'd grabbed from our shred pile on the way out. He tried to help and all our papers got mixed up. When I realized it later and ran down toward the cyclotron with the correct equations, it was too late, they were already treating the last monkey." Amy looked away, her eyes sad.

"And?"

"He'd treated the monkeys with a discarded protocol from the shred pile. It was too much radiation because of the new isomer, you see, and they were sick from it for several days. This was the week before the new horns were first noticed."

"That's not your fault," Sheldon said. "If this so-called scientist was so careless as to just grab the first paper he saw and use it without confirming it was the correct parameters, that's his fault, not yours. Surely there are safety checks and guidelines in place that were ignored."

"It _is_ my fault!" Amy barked. "I can't plead or prove my innocence because I'm guilty! I as good as killed those monkeys, and then, when I was Wonder Amy, I did kill them. It's why I wanted to be on the Task Force. I hoped to find another reason - any reason at all - before the forensics team discovered my presence in the lab. It was against the rules to visit, but I did it anyway. I found them relaxing after a late night run as Wonder Amy and no one was there to catch me getting past the locks." Her voice became tiny. "They were so sweet and intelligent. I used to bring them treats. They had names. That's why my fingerprints and DNA are all over their cages. If only I'd had time to sneak them out, to take them to Themyscira."

Sheldon considered this. "Why take them to Themyscira?"

"Because they were innocent. Lab monkeys are already neutered, they wouldn't have procreated, they could have lived in the peace they deserved. I -" Amy took a deep breath. "It was my fault to begin with and I wanted to set them free. And now they're dead and I'm going to prison for it. It's only fair."

Sheldon looked away. He'd been so convinced that it was all mistake, that Amy was entirely innocent in the whole situation. But there was no reason to doubt Amy's confession. Why would she implicate herself in such detail if it weren't true?

"But it was still an accident." He turned back with renewed vigor. "It's was already a weak case, but now it's transparent if you have an excuse for being in the lab. Visiting the monkeys may have been against UCLA protocol, but it's not a crime. If we have to, we can tell the story of the mixed up papers but leave out why you were coming from the janitor's closet. Or surely we can think of another excuse. And then . . . and then . . ." His mind churned and chugged, working hard as he spoke. "Oh! I've got it. You fed the monkeys in January; it was in the consumption log! That's why your fingerprints were there."

"The lab is deep cleaned to surgical standards every week, and the monkey room once a month. Everything went wrong in February."

Silence. Sheldon sat in stunned silence. This was worse than he thought. As he understood it from the newspaper reports he scoured every day, Amy was only being brought up on charges because of her DNA and fingerprints were where they shouldn't be. But her fears were well founded; it seemed likely that it was only a matter of time before the cause of the creation of the monkeys was linked to her, too. It may have been an accident, but Major Bloom and the rest of the government wanted a criminal and a conviction. They insisted on a grand jury hearing because of her expected plea of no contest; they didn't want to lose their soapbox, a grandstand to share all their evidence and theories, a way to publicly flog her for her crimes if she wouldn't give them a full trial. Uncomfortable with metahumans and embarrassed they were lagging behind in catching criminals and villains, they wanted to make a lesson out of a person who created these new super villains.

Any yet . . . There was still one thing he needed to clarify. It occurred to him after her arrest, it seemed to confirm the doubts he'd had, and he took a deep breath to ask it now. "Were you really being followed? The night of the movie, you drove me home in your own car, with your own license plates."

Amy shook her head. "No." She looked down at her skirt again. "No one was following Dr. Fowler. I made that up as an excuse. I thought if you got involved with Dr. Fowler, if they knew we were dating, then they could use you as a witness or try to use it against me or even implicate you in my crime. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have lied to you. But I lied to protect you; you have to believe me."

So she had lied to him. He wasn't surprised. "But you were going to tell me, weren't you? When you wanted to take a walk, get out of the lab, right before . . ." He swallowed away the end of the sentence.

"I was."

Sheldon sat back and considered this. He believed her. The minute he realized she'd been lying, curled up in the middle of his bed almost a month ago, refusing to go to work, hiding from the world, he believed her. His heart had never stop believing in her. And it wasn't about to start.

"Tell me what to do," Sheldon said softly. "I'll do anything. Anything I can do to help. I'll talk to Major Bloom or your lawyer or I'll . . . anything."

"I don't need you to rescue me. I don't need any man riding up on a white horse to save me like I'm weak," Amy growled.

Sheldon furrowed his brow. "I know you're not. But you say you don't need me, yet you won't save yourself. I'm not riding up on a white horse, and not just because horses are terrifying. I'm saying I want to fight along side you. We'll work together, as partners. We were pretty good partners, don't you think? Please, Amy, let me help you."

"You can't," she said. "All you can do is leave me and forget about me and move on with your life, Sheldon. All I want you to do is stop trying and arguing for me. I _am_ guilty. Let this indictment come through, let me go to prison for my crimes. What kind of superhero would I be if I didn't accept justice?"

"But Am -"

"You said you'd do anything." Amy stood and looked down at him. "I'm telling you to leave and forget about me. That's what I want."

* * *

"Wow. You look like crap," Penny said as he opened the door.

"Lovely to see you, too," Sheldon mumbled, moving toward the sofa and plopping down in his old spot with his full weight.

Leonard was sitting in the white chair and he leaned forward. "I take it that it didn't go well. Wouldn't she see you?"

"No, she answered and we talked." Sheldon hung his head in complete defeat. "But it's no use. She refuses to fight at the grand jury or to reconsider her plea. The news was right, she's going to plead no contest."

"Did she give you any idea why?" Leonard asked. "From what we read, there isn't that much evidence."

Sheldon shrugged his shoulders. "She told me to stop pursuing a legal solution." Another non-answer, another side-step.

"Sweetie," Penny sat down next to him, "I know you're sad and I get it. You were work friends who went out on a date once. But you don't love her, do you?"

He wanted to tell them it wasn't just a single date at the movies, although that night had been perfect. And it wasn't even the thrill of scientific discovery in the lab, even though that was the former greatest passion in his life. It was about so much more. There were nights on the sofa wagering on who committed the crime on _Murder, She Wrote_. There were sparkling dinner conversations in which Amy taught him a philosophical game from her home called Counterfactuals. There were so many conversations with both versions of Amy about science and movies and current events and . . . life. The silence was golden, too, reading next to each other in bed, falling asleep wrapped about her, the way Amy would find excuses to touch his hand in the lab near the end. But it was not his secret to tell, so Sheldon could not answer.

"It's okay if you do. I knew Penny was the one for me the first time I saw her," Leonard said when Sheldon didn't reply. "But you don't have to tell us. _Right_ , Penny?"

"Huh? Oh, right," Penny said. "You don't have to talk about anything you don't want to. How about something to get your mind off of it? I was about to get some ice cream."

"No, thank you," Sheldon mumbled. Even ice cream reminded him of Amy.

"Come on, it will cheer you up. I have chocolate Magic Shell and chocolate helps everything!"

Too broken to fight anyone else today, Sheldon gave in. "Alright. Just a little."

Penny took off toward the kitchen with a smile and Sheldon envied her belief that chocolate would be enough. Or even a tiny mitigation of his pain.

"The worse thing is," Sheldon said to Leonard, "Amy is the strongest and feistiest woman I know. But she's not even fighting this. She's already defeated."

Leonard frowned. "I'm sorry. I don't what else to say. It's a shame there's no such thing as a superhero lawyer you can call to swoop in the courtroom and solve all your problems." Sheldon resisted the urge to tell him that's exactly what his first suggestion had been. "The only lawyer we know is Howard's cousin, and he's not a superhero."

"No, no one with the last name Wolowitz ever could be," Sheldon agreed.

"Hey!" Leonard snapped his fingers. "What about Priya? We could Skype her."

"Noooooooo," groaned Sheldon and Penny in unison. He hadn't realized she'd been listening.

Sitting back in his chair, Leonard muttered, "It was just an idea."

"Ugh!" Penny called from the kitchen. "What's wrong with this Magic Shell? It's not hardening!"

"Did you use the Green Lantern ice cream?" Leonard asked her.

"Yeah, why?"

Leonard got up to walk toward her. "Magic Shell won't work on it. I know it feels just as cold as regular ice cream, but it's made with green flame."

"So?" Penny asked, holding the two bowls out to her side.

"Green flame is an extraterrestrial substance," Sheldon explained. "Just because it makes ice cream feel cold doesn't mean it reacts to all the substances on Earth the same way. Just like Mar-Vell absorbs the radiation from our sun differently, because he's already been exposed to -"

Sheldon stood up. "I need go."

"What's wrong?" Leonard asked.

"Nothing. Nothing's wrong. In fact, it may be all right." He raced to the door, turning around at the last moment to add, "Penny, thank you for being completely incapable of understanding metascience."

* * *

Ring of the doorbell, pounding against the door. Ring of the doorbell, pounding against the door. Ring of the doorbell, pounding against the door. "Bernadette! Wake up!"  
Ring of the doorbell, pounding against the door. Ring of the doorbell, pounding against the door. Ring of the doorbell, pounding against the door. "Bernadette! Wake up!"  
Ring of the doorbell, pounding against the door. Ring of the doorbell, pounding against the door. Ring of the doorbell, pounding against the door. "Bernadette! Wake up!"

But it was a pajama-wearing Howard that opened the door, his face a mask of rage. "Sheldon, what are you doing? Do you have any idea what time it is?"

"Where's Bernadette?" Sheldon pushed his way past his friend into the house.

"She's upstairs putting Halley back to bed, who woke up crying when you pounded on the door like a madman. I don't think it's too much to demand you tell us what you're doing here like this," Howard growled, following him into the living room.

"You can fire up your Playstation. But I need Bernadette," Sheldon answered, walking toward the stairs.

"What is going on?" Howard whined.

"Sheldon?" Bernadette appeared at the top, wrapped in her robe. "You'd better have a good excuse for being here in the middle of the night or I'm going to be cellmates with your former lab partner for killing you!"

"Oh, good, there you are! I need your help as a microbiologist."

Bernadette pushed past him on the stairs. "Keep your voice down! I just got Halley back to sleep."

"That's a good idea, actually." Sheldon followed her toward the sofa and whispered, "We should all keep our voices down. Maybe you should turn on your blender and the vacuum, too. Just in case."

"Sheldon! What are you doing here?" Howard asked.

"Bernadette," Sheldon ignored him to look down at his wife, "I need your expertise as a second set of eyes. I'm certain I'm correct because, well, I always am, but this is the most important hypothesis I've ever had in my entire life and I have to prove it's correct tomorrow. Or is it today now? It doesn't matter, we only have a few hours. Given the compressed timeline, I'm willing to test that old 'two heads are better than one' adage."

"Tomorrow?" Howard asked.

"If I say yes will you leave sooner than if I say no?" Bernadette asked, crossing her arms.

"Yes, because I refuse to leave your house until you say yes."

Shaking her head, Bernadette said, "Okay, fine, whatever. Let's just get this over with."

"Bernadette! You can't let him hold us hostage like this!" Howard protested.

"We're already awake now!" Bernadette threw her hands up. "What hypothesis could you possibly have that's so important? Howie says you don't have a new project yet, so I'm confused."

Sheldon shook his head. "I didn't, but I started this one earlier today."

"Today?" Howard asked.

Bernadette waved her hand at her husband. "You're not making sense. Slow down and start from the beginning."

Taking a deep breath, Sheldon explained, "Before I tell you from the beginning, there's two things you need to know. First, I came here tonight to play video games with Howard - which he's queuing up at this exact second - and _only_ to play video games with Howard."

"Ummmm . . ."

"Secondly, by allowing you to look at my research and discussing it with you, I'll be committing a crime by disseminating Classified Information to persons without the formal security clearance to receive it." He gripped the handle of his messenger bag, stuffed and heavy with the papers he'd been working on all day.

"Is this about Dr. Fowler's grand jury hearing tomorrow? Today?" Bernadette asked.

Sheldon nodded. "She's innocent, and I think I can prove it."

"Shouldn't you be discussing this with her lawyer, then?" Howard asked. "So she can bring it up in court? And we can all sleep."

"No. I love Amy, and I need to do this for her." Sheldon licked his lips. "Please, Bernadette? I love her. I love that she loves cozy mysteries, the Tea Shop Mysteries are her favorite. And I love how her eyes sparkle when she slices a brain to the perfect depth. I love how Rodgers and Hammerstein music causes her feet to shuffle as if she's dancing along. And I can set her free. But I need your help."

"Nope, no way, she'd not doing it," Howard said, pointing to the door. "You need to leave."

But Bernadette had lowered her arms and relaxed her shoulders while Sheldon spoke, and now she smiled softly. "Wow, you really do love her."

"I do."

"Okay. I'll do it."

Howard grabbed her arm. "Bernie, are you crazy? He's asking you to help him break the law -"

"You heard the man, start playing your Playstation!" she barked at him. Then she waved her arm toward the dining room. "Should we use the table? And where do we start?"

Sheldon nodded and followed her. "How much do you know about the microbe that causes the H5V17 virus, commonly known as the Themysciran flu?"

 _To be continued . . ._

* * *

 _ **Thank you for your reviews!**_


	14. Chapter 14

. . .

* * *

 **THE WONDER AMY PARADOX**

 **Chapter Fourteen**

* * *

He arrived in a flurry of frustration, both because he couldn't remember a time he was so nervous and because there had been a hold-up outside the courtroom as he worked and finally succeeded in getting permission to enter. Grand jury hearings were not public affairs, as he knew, but it took far longer than Sheldon thought it should have to explain he had both the necessary security clearance and was on the potential witness list. Getting his folded whiteboard through the metal detector was a breeze by comparison.

He hadn't planned on being so dramatic, but he was so annoyed and flustered that he pushed both of the heavy walnut doors open together and everyone in the courtroom turned to watch as he marched down the center aisle.

"Sheldon?" He saw Amy's mouth form his name, her brow furrowing as she shook her head at him. 'Go away,' he knew it meant, 'just like I asked you to.'

But Sheldon kept walking, all the way up to the little hinged gate separating the few spectators from the proceedings.

"Can I help you?" asked the judge, peering over the top of his half-eye glasses.

"You Honor, I need to address the court. I have vital new evidence."

There was hum in the courtroom, and Sheldon saw Amy's lawyer lean toward her.

"Objection!" yelled the prosecutor as he stood. "This is a grand jury hearing, not an episode of _Perry Mason_. Random people do not get to storm the courtroom and demand the right to present so-called evidence. We have a discovery phase for a reason."

The judge turned toward Amy's lawyer. "Ms. Grant, were you expecting this? Do you know him?"

"We were not expecting him, Your Honor, but this is Dr. Sheldon Cooper. You'll see he's been included on the potential witness list from both parties."

"So it seems, Mr. Lansing, that this gentleman is not a random person. You yourself saw the need to include him as a potential witness," the judge said to the prosecutor.

"But, Your Honor, his inclusion was merely standard procedure. We had no intention of calling him as we believe he could not possibly have any evidence to add."

"He seems to disagree. What about you, Ms. Grant? Do you have any intention of calling him to give evidence?"

Sheldon watched this exchange in silence, his head swinging from one side of the courtroom to the other. Amy was openly staring at him, her eyes dark, and he knew she was angry to see him there. She'd asked one thing of him, and he'd defied her. But only for her own good and he could prove it.

"I do, Your Honor."

"Objection! By her own admittance, Ms. Grant had no expectation of calling -"

"It seems to me that unless you are telepathic methuman yourself, you have no way of knowing what my intentions were." Ms Grant interrupted him coolly.

"You Honor!" Mr. Lansing protested. "Any new evidence this man claims to have was not properly submitted during discovery."

"Actually, it was," Sheldon offered, raising his hand as though he were back in school. "Everything I have to share can be found in all those binders." He gestured toward the table covered in black binders and other items in sealed plastic bags, labeled in red as evidence.

"This is highly unusual and unacceptable-"

"Mr. Lansing," the judge interrupted leaning forward and glowering down, "may I remind you it was your team who insisted on a grand jury hearing, not the defendant. And the purpose of the grand jury hearing is to give all evidence, even that which be excluded during a trial, so that it can be determined if there is enough evidence to proceed to a formal charge and thus a possible trial. Furthermore, in my courtroom, it is _I_ who decides what is unacceptable."

The judge sat back and steepled his fingers, and Sheldon waited as the room stilled around them. Finally, he spoke. "But this _is_ highly unusual, and I do not recommend you make a habit of it in your career, Ms. Grant. However, I will allow it."

A murmur broke out in the court room as Sheldon let out a deep breath, and he dared a glance over at Amy. She lowered her eyes.

Once again, the judge leaned forward and peered over the top of his reading glasses at Sheldon. "But, young man, you'd better not be wasting my time. One thing Mr. Lansing said that I agree with is that this is not an episode of _Law & Order_. I expect a concise, logical argument using verifiable evidence. If it's anything less, I will hold you in contempt and for obstruction of justice."

"Your Honor, I hold many things in contempt, but this courtroom is not one of them," Sheldon called up at him.

The judge sat back with a nod. "Ms. Grant, I presume you'll be calling Dr. Cooper has your next witness?"

"Yes, Your Honor."

It wasn't until he was swearing to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, that Sheldon doubted his plan. He wouldn't be telling the whole truth. The whole truth he'd never tell. He crossed his fingers along his pant leg, hoping no one saw him.

After answering a few preliminary questions from Amy's lawyer about his credentials and his association with Dr. Fowler and the Task Force in general, Ms. Grant looked at him and said, "And the first piece of evidence you have is?"

"Oh, yes." He turned toward the judge. "May I set up my whiteboard?"

"Quickly."

Sheldon did so and stood next to it. "Can I stand here?"

There was a sigh so massive from Mr. Lansing that everyone turned to looked at him.

"Yes, but remember I asked for concise," the judge said.

"Of course." Sheldon cleared his throat. "My evidence is three fold. There are three vitals facts that have been overlooked, that when braided together prove Dr. Fowler was not at fault for creating the mutant monkeys." Another murmur around the room. "The first is virus H5V17, commonly called the Themysciran flu."

"Objection!" Mr. Lansing stood. "The Themysciran flu does not, in fact, appear in any of our evidence. Therefore, it was not shared during discovery and therefore is inadmissible."

"Correction, it was," Sheldon said. "Overruled."

"Dr. Cooper," the judge looked at him, "I'll do the overruling in this courtroom. However, if you can immediately locate said evidence now, I'll allow you to proceed."

"Binder number two was a list of all employees who had contact with the monkeys under the study in question, including their attendance records. Now, it's easy to dismiss it as meaningless drivel that someone of my intelligence didn't need to spend hours in the lab reading, but on page 37 you'll note that all four of the team members were absent at the same time due to the Themysciran flu." He gestured toward the binders. "May I?"

Instead the judge waved his hand toward a bailiff and suddenly the page in question appeared on large monitor.

"How did you get an electronic version when we were forced to read from actual binders?" Sheldon protested.

"Concise, Dr. Cooper. Concise," the judge said in a warning tone.

Sheldon nodded and turned back toward the screen, pointing at the entry in question, exactly as he saw it in his mind. "There!"

"Well, Mr. Lansing, it seems Dr. Cooper is correct," the judge said. "Proceed."

"Thank you," Sheldon said, letting out a tiny breath at having crossed yet another hurdle. "You'll also notice, on the next page, that the temporary lab assistant brought in to feed the monkeys worked for a week and then was out himself with the flu." The screen flicked and the new information was display. "Immediately after that, Dr. Fowler, despite not being on the isotope study, filled in for three days. Thus, the presence of her fingerprints and DNA in the room."

"Your Honor, we're not disputing that Dr. Fowler was is the lab in early January with good reason," Mr. Lansing said. "The point is that fingerprints and DNA from a month prior to the mutation of the monkeys are irrelevant to the fingerprints and DNA we found from the defendant at a later date, the date the mutations were set in motion."

"They are not irrelevant and I can prove it," Sheldon said.

"Let the man, finish, Mr. Lansing. The less you interrupt him, the sooner this will be over," the judge said. "Tell us about the fingerprints, Dr. Cooper."

"Actually, I need to talk about them later. They're not in my outline yet."

"Fine." The judge relaxed his chin in his hand.

"As I said, the first key point is virus H5V17. In humans, we know the silent incubation period is very short, a few hours at most." He looked over at the judge. "Do I need to cite a source for that? I have one."

"Why don't you operate under the presumption I want you to just keep talking unless I interrupt you?"

"Very well. That works better for me. However, as you are no doubt aware, monkeys are not humans. Although very similar, they do have multiple differences in their DNA structure, including the way they metabolize some viruses." Sheldon went to his white board and started to the draw the diagram he'd mentally prepared, explaining at the same time the differences between human and primate metabolism and also how the H5V17 virus would likely be changed by those differences. He tried to speak slowly and clearly, and he followed several bits of advice from Bernadette about making his drawing more simple and eliminating certain technical words in favor of the more common lay terms. He was going to have to buy her a very expensive gift.

"So, in conclusion, the incubation rate of viruses in the same class as H5V17 in a rhesus macaque can take up to eight weeks," he finished, capping his marker.

"Wait a minute, son." The judge leaned forward. "Are you saying the monkeys had the Themysciran flu?"

"Yes. You'll note on page 97 of the Food Consumption Log that during the week of January third, the temporary lab assistant noted an increased appetite." He paused. "Their metabolism was speeding up, almost certainly a sign of Amazonian influence."

"So they mutated just because they got the Themysciran flu?" the judge asked, seeming genuinely interested for the first time.

"Not exactly." Sheldon frowned. "While it's clear that the monkeys contracted the bacterium responsible for the Themysciran flu from their caregivers in late December and early January, and the CDC has confirmed that haplorphine primates do contract this type of virus, the CDC also reports this class of virus remains dormant in this class of primates unless activated by an external mutation source. I can cite that study, too." The judge waved his hand dismissively. "But I do want it noted, for the record, that Dr. Fowler never, at any time, contracted the Themyscrian flu and thus was incapable of having passed it along to the monkeys."

So far, Sheldon had been succeeding at not staring at Amy. Or even really looking at her much after his initial arrival. It was necessary to concentrate on his bulleted points and work on making his drawings and text on the white board as legible as possible for there was no room for even the tiniest of errors. But now that he was speaking directly about her, he looked over at her behind the defense table. She was wearing the purple striped sweater she had knit from the yarn he gave her. But she was looking down, apparently studying something in her lap. Sheldon wasn't sure what that meant.

But he could guess. Amy had only ever asked two things of him. One, to never tell who she really was; two, to not intervene in this legal matter, to not attempt to change the course of justice. The first was easy to keep for her, the second was more fraught with difficulty. Sheldon could not stand aside any longer and let Amy take the blame for something she had not done. Even though he knew she believed that she had, he had proof that she was wrong. From the second that Penny's inability to choose the correct frozen confectionary to top with Magic Shell had aligned all the random facts he'd been storing for weeks, Sheldon knew he had to present the truth.

He couldn't live with himself if he allowed an erroneous belief to flood the media and imbed itself in those of lesser minds; but also, most importantly, for letting Amy think she was guilty of this crime. He had seen how much she really cared about those monkeys.

Having paused to study her, he must have let too many seconds pass for Mr. Lansing was on his feet again. "Well, this has all been very enlightening, Dr. Cooper, but it still doesn't prove anything. You yourself state that the monkeys would not have spontaneously mutated on their own just from the virus, so I don't see that it really matters if they had it or not -"

"I'm not finished," Sheldon snapped. "I said there were three important threads to weave together here. That was just the first."

Mr. Lansing sat back down with a groan.

Clearing his throat, Sheldon returned to the whiteboard and erased his previous work. "The second vital piece of evidence is related to the new radioactive isotope being used in this study. As you'll find in binder number seventeen . . ."

Again, he narrowed his focus to his prepared explanation and his whiteboard. How the new isotope released ionizing radiation in a dose that was deemed safe for cyclotron use, based on the highly prevalent use and relative safety of technetium-99m. But, as he drew and explained how isotopes worked, how some are stable and some are unstable, Sheldon was able to explain that the half-life of this new experimental isotope was much longer than techmetium-99m. It swam through the bloodstreams of the monkeys for days, weeks even, never fully clearing when another dose was given to them.

"It isn't stable, see." Sheldon pointed to his calculation for emphasis. "Even then, though, the side effects, while unpleasant, would have stayed within the levels we consider an acceptable price to pay for cancer treatment," Sheldon continued, "except for one problem. The monkeys' DNA were already changed by none other than virus H5V17. It wasn't that the virus alone caused the monkeys to mutate. It wasn't even that the isotope and the radiation themselves harmed the monkeys and caused their transformation. It was that the radiation activated the virus, setting off a chain reaction that led to a mutation in the virus's DNA. First it was physical, when the monkeys became ill; they had symptoms the team logged as radiation poisoning, but I've double-checked all the protocols used." Sheldon swallowed. "There was never an incorrect protocol used, the monkeys were never given an unplanned or incorrect amount of radiation."

"Relevance!" yelled Mr. Lansing. "No one is claiming there were incorrect protocols."

"Sustained. Dr. Cooper . . ." the judge replied, a warning tone in his voice, "stick to your knitting, please. This is your only warning."

Sheldon nodded up at him. "Yes, Sir." He had known the tangent was a risk, but he wanted Amy to hear it and know that he'd investigated her claim. She was never at fault for any misused calculations resulting in sick monkeys. They were never ill from radiation poisoning; and that mislabeled radiation poisoning never led to their mutation. "After the first symptoms appeared, masquerading as radiation poisoning, then the monkeys began to grow horns, their final physical transformation. But then the activated virus crossed the blood-brain barrier and changed their neurochemical processes making them violent and destructive. Like this." He drew another diagram, moving the parts of the DNA strand around as though he were working a Rubik's Cube, but misaligning them instead of matching them.

A loud rumble went through the courtroom, becoming so unruly that the judge was forced to bang his gavel and call out for order. Sheldon took the opportunity to scan the room. Mr. Lansing was huddled around his table whispering to other members of his party, one of them scribbling on a piece of paper.

Amy, too, was writing on a notepad, glancing periodically beyond him to the numbers on the board. She was double-checking his work, he knew, drawing her own diagrams. His flawless work. He watched her brow furrow and her hand moved on the paper until she made a motion as though scoring a long, deep line under it. Her cheeks puffed out as she blew air out of her mouth. Her lawyer said something to her and Amy nodded, still staring down at the paper.

"Look up, look up," Sheldon mumbled under his breath. But she didn't.

"Your Honor," Mr. Lansing was up and protesting again, "this all might be true - we'll have to double check these calculations - but it doesn't change the fact that Dr. Fowler's fingerprints and DNA were at the scene where they didn't belong. Dr. Cooper promised to explain that away, too, but he has yet to do so."

The judge turned to look at Sheldon. "Even though it may seem like tenuous evidence, Mr. Lansing is correct, Dr. Cooper, and it _is_ evidence linking Dr. Fowler to the crime. If we assume you have proved that Dr. Fowler didn't create these monkeys, she was certainly was where she didn't belong when they escaped."

"Actually," Sheldon replied, "she was on the other side of campus on an unrelated errand. The confusion stems from the flawed science behind the so-called break through by the forensics team."

Back to the whiteboard he went, explaining how the radiation in the new detection method also activated the dormant particles of isotope, charging the metal in the room and how layers upon layers of previously unseen and unknowable atoms and patterns emerged. "If we look at diagram 237, the team also discovered this partial print under Dr. Fowler's. As it matched no one on staff at UCLA, they discounted it as a flawed finding created by the outer reaches of their new method. But, if you return to the employee log, you'll see the temporary employee who cared the monkeys for the week before Dr. Fowler had fingerprints on file. And, if you put them side by side -" Sheldon nodded toward the bailiff at the computer who had done a commendable job of keeping up with his references to different pieces of evidence "- they match. Thus, it can be concluded that the fingerprints belonging to Dr. Fowler are actually dated from early January, not February."

The crescendo that went around the courtroom was even louder and longer than last time, and, although the judge banged his gavel once or twice, he mostly let it continue. Sheldon looked over at Mr. Lansing's shocked and defeated face, and he smiled. He knew it was smug and gloating, but he did not care.

Ms. Grant stood and waited for the commotion to die down before she called, "You Honor, in light of this new evidence, I call for an immediate dismissal of this proceeding and all charges against my client."

"Mr. Lansing," the judge looked over at him, "do you have anything to say to that?" But he just shrugged his shoulders in a helpless manner, not even bothering to stand. "Very well. All charges against Amy Farrah Fowler are dismissed and court is adjourned."

"All rise!"

Another round of noise went around the room and everyone stood as the judge gathered some papers and left the room.

Sheldon turned his eyes toward the defendant's table, where Ms. Grant was still standing, turned now to accept the handshakes from Mr. Lansing and his team before they left via the central aisle, some of them whispering among themselves, but Mr. Lansing walking away with stony shoulders. Then Ms. Grant turned further, to shake hands with some people who had come forward behind her, her face breaking open into a grin. It was no doubt a professional coup for her, to have bested the government in such a highly publicized case.

But Sheldon watched all this happen and thought about the implications of it all on the edges of his brain. The primary focus of his gaze was Amy, and he watched her as she sat for a moment, still looking down, and then she reached to gather her purse, slinging it over her shoulder and then standing herself next to Ms. Grant. The bailiff came over and bent down to deactivate and unhook her anklet tracker, and they exchanged a few words as he did so. Amy shook his hand before he walked away with the device. Then she hugged Ms. Grant and the ladies left, Ms. Grant via the central aisle, but Amy walked toward a smaller side door that the bailiff reached out and held open for her. She wanted to avoid the press outside, Sheldon guessed.

Realizing he'd stood by the witness box staring too long, Sheldon scrambled to fold up his white board and tried to race after her.

"Hold on, son." The bailiff stepped in front of him, put his hand out to stop him. "This exit is for parties related to the trial."

"But I _am_ related to the trial!" Sheldon protested, watching Amy's slow walk down a long, white hallway. "I just changed the course of this trial!"

"That list doesn't include witnesses." He let go of the door and it started to swing shut, but very slowly. "I'm sorry - really I am, that was quite a show you put on - but you'll have to use the front door."

"Amy!" Sheldon bellowed, and she turned, just at the last minute, twisting at the waist looking at him over her shoulder. She opened her mouth to speak, but the door shut with a thud and Sheldon didn't hear a single sound.

Hopelessly, he turned and took in the courtroom empty but for the bailiff standing next to him and the evidence he'd used to save her still displayed on the screen behind the witness box.

 _To be continued . . ._

* * *

 _ **Darnit, readers, I'm a writer, not a lawyer! I'm sure there are many legalize related errors in this chapter, for which I take full responsibly and apologize.**_

 _ **Nevertheless, thank you for your reviews!**_


	15. Chapter 15

. . .

* * *

 **THE WONDER AMY PARADOX**

 **Chapter Fifteen**

* * *

A wedge of purple stripes caught the edge of Sheldon's peripheral vision, and he turned just in time to see the door to 4A close behind it. He excused himself and hurried to the hallway. What a time for Kripke to have cornered him to tell him in explicit - and unwanted - detail about his recent illness. Who invited him, anyway?

"Amy, wait!"

She stopped, her hand on the handrail, one foot over the precipice to the first stair, and she turned back. Sheldon had waited with nervous impatience for her appearance at this last minute gathering Penny had called and begged him to attend, and she'd only just arrived.

"Are you leaving?" Sheldon asked, shutting the happy noises of 4A behind him. "Why? You just got here. This is your party. Raj brought cupcakes, although I agree that it's in poor taste that he got the ones decorated with monkeys."

Amy gave a soft smile. "No, it's not the cupcakes. I just came to put in an appearance, to thank Penny and Leonard for the invitation. But it's really all for you, Sheldon; you're the one who saved the day, not me."

"Perhaps we can share it. Won't you come back in?"

She shook her head. "Not tonight. It just feels weird."

"It is Stuart? I know he seems creepy when you first meet him, but he grows on you."

"No. He was nice."

"Oh, it's Bert, isn't it? I don't know who invited him. I'll go get rid of him." Sheldon reached out for the doorknob again.

"Don't!" He turned back to see her outstretched arm. "It's just that the past couple of days have been overwhelming. I guess it's just too noisy for me right now with all those people."

"After a month on house arrest alone in your apartment, I thought you'd be ready for some human interaction."

Amy put her hand down and turned. "I don't want you think I'm ungrateful for what you did today. Quite the opposite. I don't know how I'll ever repay you."

Sheldon let out the breath he'd been holding ever since he'd arrived in the courtroom. "You never have to. I didn't do it for reciprocity."

"I know. But, the thing is, even though I am thankful to you, it doesn't change the fact that those monkeys mutated and died because of me. If it weren't for the microbes that clung to me as I left my home, if it weren't for all the humans who got sick and were contiguous, none of this would have happened. Even if my labmate never really used the protocol I dropped."

Sheldon nodded. "Yes, I know." He would not lie to her; virus H5V17 set things in motion, and it was she who brought it to Los Angeles.

"And all those fingerprints in the lab . . . they weren't just from when I fed the monkeys. They are from when I visited and when I came at the end, as Wonder Amy, weren't they?"

He shrugged. "I crossed my fingers during the whole truth part."

She gave only a tiny nod, not even the crack of the smile for which he'd been hoping.

Sheldon licked his lips. "It's a tragedy that the monkeys mutated and died in the way they did, but think of all the humans and animals you've saved as Wonder Amy. You've done far more positive in this world than negative. Still, if I could, I'd get in my time machine and I'd go back in time and warn you. Maybe I'd crash land on Themyscira, the first man you'd ever seen, and I'd bring you back here with me. But there's nothing we can do to change that. We're not time travelers."

"Maybe in another life . . ." Amy's voice trailed as she started to rotate away from him.

"What about in this life?" he asked to stop her, almost afraid of the answer he would receive. "You'll stay at Caltech?"

"Yes, if they'll still have me. I'll have to have a meeting with Mrs. Davis about lifting my suspension." She paused. "Speaking of work, Sheldon, I think you should pursue metahuman radioactivity. You have a flare for it."

"I learned from the best," he replied. "And Bernadette helped a little."

"I'll have to find a way to thank her, too, then." Amy did turn away this time, her hand reaching to the railing on the stairs again.

"Are you angry with me?" Sheldon asked suddenly. "Is that why you wouldn't look at me in the courtroom? Why you're leaving now?"

Without turning, she replied to the empty stairwell, "Yes, I was angry because I told you that I didn't need rescuing, that I didn't want you to do anything, but you did anyway."

"I know I violated your trust, that I did something you asked me not to do, but I won't apologize because I'm not sorry." He reached out to brush her shoulder. "Amy, I understand if you can't be . . . friends with me anymore. I knew it was a possibility. But I decided I'd rather live in a world where you were free to be yourself than one where you were wrongly condemned for something you didn't do, even if that meant that your free self wouldn't be with me. I meant what I said yesterday. I love you, Amy, and I'd rather have you be happy even if that has to be without me."

Amy finally turned around and surprised him by reaching for his hand, holding it between both of hers. "I'm not angry now. I only was at first, but your evidence convinced even me. I didn't stay to talk in the courtroom because . . . because I was overcome, I guess. With surprise. With relief. With gratefulness."

"Then why are you leaving?"

"I told you, Sheldon. Wonder Amy cannot be in a relationship. It is too dangerous for you. Either you will get killed yourself or your heart will break when I do." She squeezed her eyes, and two tears silently traced their way down past her glasses and onto her cheeks. "That hasn't changed."

Sheldon reached up with his free hand and brushed first tear away and then the other. She was crying steadily now, if silently, a tear falling to replace the one he cleared, and he repeated the same action, trying to wipe away her sadness. "And I told you yesterday that I do not want to be in a relationship with Wonder Amy," he whispered. "I want to be in a relationship with _you_."

Her eyes snapped open, the bottom of them logged by her tear prism. "But I _am_ Wonder Amy, just as I am Dr. Fowler, Sheldon. I cannot separate and discard a part of myself, even for you. You have to understand that."

But it was not said in anger. In fact, the entire conversation had been calm, nothing like the foyer, nothing like in her apartment. It was possible she had resigned herself to life alone and lonely as Dr. Fowler forever; it was what he feared, what he knew was a possibility when he broke her trust. But he thought she seemed more contemplative than anything else, as though her mind was still turning over the day's events and processing them. And, if she were still considering her options, that meant he still had a chance.

"I do. I'm not asking you to do that. But I've seen just Amy. I told you, just Amy is so much more than Wonder Amy and Dr. Fowler, just Amy is the best of all of that plus everything that makes you _you_. It was just Amy who came to the movie dressed like a nun and just Amy that slept next to me at night and it was just Amy that knit me that scarf and it was just Amy that told me her secrets. It is that Amy I love. _That_ hasn't changed."

"But I still have to be Dr. Fowler to your friends, to work," Amy protested softly.

"I know. It's okay, because I have a massive crush on her." He paused. "And Wonder Amy, too. I know it's dangerous, but you can always come home to me now, and I'll take care of you. Not because you need someone to take care of you, but because it is the greatest act of love I know. That is, if you're really continuing as Wonder Amy. Yesterday you made it sound like you wouldn't."

Amy tilted her head. "I could not live with myself if I knew I could stop just one crime and I did not."

"Good. You're my favorite superhero. One of us needs to be brave enough to peel the skin off of a peach."

He thought that she would at least smile at that or perhaps even grin or laugh, but instead her face firmed up and her eyes became wet again.

"That is, unless you don't love me." It hurt so much to say that he almost crippled over from the pain.

Amy squeezed his hand tightly even tighter. "Oh, Sheldon, don't you know? I love you! I love you! You're _my_ superhero, and you were long before you showed up in court today. I loved you so much it frightened me. I was just as frightened at the power of your love as I was of being arrested for creating the monkeys." Amy pulled her hand away to reach into her purse, pulling out her phone. Just as he had the day before, she turned the screen toward him and pulled up his contact information and played the ring tone.

 _And we kissed, as though nothing could fall_  
 _And the shame was on the other side_  
 _Oh, we can beat them, forever and ever_  
 _Then we could be heroes just for one day_

 _Oh, we can beat them, forever and ever  
_ _Then we could be heroes just for one day  
_ _We can be heroes  
_ _We can be heroes  
_ _We can be heroes just for one day_

"It's been your ring tone ever since we exchanged numbers at the beginning of our work together," she explained. She took a deep breath. "If this is going to be forever, I'm going to need you to do much more than hold my bracelets, Sheldon. There are things a bath cannot solve. You'll need to accept my leaving and absences at inconvenient times. You'll have to bind my wounds. They'll be parts of our life we can never talk about outside of our apartment, even with your friends. You'll have to keep secrets, make up excuses, come up with alibis. It doesn't make for a good roommate."

Sheldon shuffled his feet slightly. "I, myself, have been told on numerous occasions that I'm a horrible roommate. That I'm too picky and too precise and too demanding and too selfish. I'm not saying any of that is true, but, um, well, full disclosure."

"And there won't be any children," Amy added softly.

"But there will be _you_." Amy closed her eyes at that. Sheldon added, "That's all I want for my forever. I don't expect easy; it hasn't been yet."

"I know," Amy said, opening her eyes. "That was my fault. Now I realize that I just needed you to make it safe for me to love you. I think I needed to realize that part of being a superhero, part of being a strong woman, is knowing when to let someone else help, to let them hold me." Amy stepped up even closer to him, her cardigan almost touching the front of his dress shirt. "I know now that I lost Dr. Fowler, that I let Wonder Amy overtake her. But you helped me find her again. You loved her, and you helped me love her again, too. You never tried to hold me back, you only held me up. You always understood what I needed."

He leaned forward and pressed his lips to the center of her brow, brushing it softly as he pulled away. "Like this?"

"Yes," Amy whispered.

"It was love that moment after Wonder Amy and I made love for the first time, but I didn't realize it yet. I just needed Dr. Fowler to explain it to me." Sheldon reached his free hand up and touched a lock of her hair, pulling it gently from her face and brushing it back behind her ear. Amy watched him, her face calm but her eyes swirling, and then she closed her eyes slowly when his fingertip caressed the edge of her ear. His fingers pressed very slightly between hers, a tiny movement. When her eyes opened, that vast and profound emotion passed between them again, but this time Sheldon understand it for the love that it was, that it always had been.

"Can we go to your apartment now?" she asked.

Sheldon's heart lodged in his throat. "I thought you wanted to be alone," he whispered.

"I've made up my mind; I don't want to be alone. I want to be with you. Forever." She paused. "That is, if you'll still have me, just I am? As just Amy?"

"I thought you'd never ask." Sheldon turned but didn't let go of her hand. He unlocked the door and opened it for her, only stepping over the threshold behind her and locking it behind them.

There, in the privacy of where she first came as Wonder Amy, Sheldon leaned down and kissed her as Dr. Fowler. It started gently, the faint brushing of their lips, and then he pressed firmer, pulling her in close, brushing his tongue along hers, losing himself in her mouth, in her warmth.

"Bedroom," he whispered in her ear, punctuating his desires with a flick of his tongue across her earlobe. He walked backward toward the room in question, holding her hands and tugging her gently after him. Only once there did let her go to shut that door, too. Amy was not quiet in bed. And he wouldn't have her any other way.

Sheldon looked over to see her reaching up to unbutton the top of her sweater and he put his hand out to still her. "May I?" he asked.

Her eyebrows went up, but she nodded. Sheldon led her to the bed and he sat along the edge next to her before he reached up release the buttons himself. "This is the cardigan you made with the yarn I gave you," he said. "You wore it to court."

"I wanted your strength with me today," Amy answered.

Pausing to glance up at her, Sheldon said, "It worked."

The sweater was soft and fuzzy beneath his hands and, once he had it unbuttoned, he reached up to slide it off her shoulders. Amy watched him, studied him, lifting her arms so that it glided down with ease. Then Sheldon worked at the bottoms on her blouse, white with little navy blue stars on it, and he sucked in his breath when he glimpsed her bra.

"You're not wearing your armor."

"I couldn't. It would set off the metal detectors in the courthouse. At the police station I was able to convince them my bracelet was a medical alert bracelet, that I was allergic to penicillin, but I didn't want to risk it again."

The shirt fell around her waist, Amy plucking her wrists out of the tight cuffs. Sheldon reached out for her hand and pulled it close, leaning over to encircle her naked wrist with a line of kisses before picking up the other and circumnavigating it with his lips, also.

The bra was similar in color to her skin and it was free of ornamentation. Sheldon reached up and traced the top with his fingertip, grazing over her breasts as they heaved with her heavy breath. "You don't mind?" Amy asked.

"No. Now you are just Amy, remember?"

He put a hand behind her back and found the clasp, struggling a bit and trying to ignore the giggle from Amy until he just gave up and pulled at straps instead, shimmying it down her torso. Amy's breasts, those beautiful high mounds, greeted him and he leaned forward hungrily, taking one of her nipples in his mouth, teasing with the hardness of his teeth followed by the sudden softness of his tongue as Amy reached for his head, running her fingers through his hair as she pulled him in tighter. "Yesss . . . ," she moaned.

Barely able to stand her, the simpleness of her khaki skirt and practical bra inflaming him more than he would have anticipated, Sheldon pulled away, standing to strip naked as quickly as he could, leaving his clothes where they landed. One of his shoes thumped against the closet door as he kicked it way. Amy took advantage of his absence to remove her bra and she threw it away from the bed, letting it mix with his clothes on the floor. Her heavy shoes slipped easily off her feet.

Naked now, Sheldon returned to the edge of the bed and helped Amy to fall backward upon it, her straight hair fanning around her, and he angled over her, running a kiss from her mouth down over her chin, dipping in her neck, down to take a deep breath of her between those breasts, and over her stomach to edge of her navel. He kissed a random shape on her stomach.

Looking up at her, meeting her eyes, he reached to unbutton and unzip her skirt, grasping the waist and tugging. Amy lifted her bottom, and he pulled the skirt and the tights down but stopped after just a couple of inches with a smile.

"What?" Amy asked, looking down at him.

"Your underwear." They were royal blue with white stars, the same pairs he'd been seeing flashes of under his pajama top for weeks.

"They're all I have," Amy explained with shrug. "I have two dozen matching pairs and I rotate them in my drawer. So that they get equal wear."

"That may be the sexiest thing you've ever said to me."

Amy laughed then, a belly laugh, just as she had when they played Mario Kart, and Sheldon grinned back as he tightened his grip and continued to lower her skirt and tights and even now her panties together, sliding off the edge of bed and bending on his knees to remove them from her feet. He picked up her left foot, holding its bare flesh, that dainty arch and bright red toenails in his hand. He squeezed it gently, a hint of a massage, and then he reached with his opposite hand to brush against her ankle.

"It's completely healed?" he asked.

"It was before I left that day," she answered from where she still lay above him on the bed. "It was not my first broken bone and it will not be my last."

Sheldon nodded, a lump in his throat. Yes, that would be his life now, the constant fear that Amy had warned him about. But it was a small price to pay. Leaning forward, he kissed his way around her ankle just as he had her wrist. He massaged her calf, smoothing his palm over her skin as opposed to the boots. His lips trailed upwards, following the curve of her knee and then her inner thigh. Amy's breath above him shallowed and quickened as she widened her legs, and her scent, stronger than ever, filled the room.

There was the center of her, the secret space shared by both Amys. Gulping, Sheldon looked up at her. She'd propped herself on her elbows and she was watching him.

"Oh, Amy," he groaned and then he buried his face in the depths of her, letting her musky scent fill his nose and his mouth just as it had filled the room.

Her back arched and her head fell back with a moan of, "Great Hera . . . !"

Of all the nights and mornings in the shower he'd imagined doing this, of tasting exactly what it was that made Amy just Amy, he had not imagined it would be so rich and smooth, the feel of her beneath his tongue, the revelations of her deep moans and mews like a tigress passing through her thighs as they tightened around his head. She tasted like confidence and intelligence and power, and then, when her roar filled the room and he lapped faster at her, she tasted like something so pure it did not have a name.

Only after her cries became pants did Sheldon rise up, gently pulling her legs onto the bed, settling between her thighs. He kissed her spent face gently until she lowered her hand down his back to his bottom, and he slipped into her, into the space he'd prepared for his homecoming, not just with his tongue but with weeks of patience and nurturing.

It felt better than he remembered, and he knew it was because it was the Amy he'd been waiting for that welcomed him, that combination of softness and strength, gentleness and power, generosity and self-indulgence, a quiet melding of everything he'd ever wanted. It was better than any time before, not just for having denied himself until he was ready, but because it was whole, a complete union of him and all the facets of Amy he loved. The reason he didn't realize it had been love at first is because she wasn't ready to tell him yet.

Amy's feet rested in the crook of his knees, the first time her bare soles had ever touched his skin as they made love, and something about that felt just as intimate as the way he whispered her name repeatedly into her ear. He loved her slowly, not pulling back as far as he desired because he did not want to lose too much of her at a time. Even though he'd waited weeks for this moment, he wanted it to be a gift for her, too, an offering of not just his body, but also his heart and soul, a seal upon their love.

Her breath came in puffs against his ear, and, pausing, he shifted his weight to one arm so that he could reach between them. His fingers joined her and she moaned; he watched her carefully, losing himself in her eyes as his heart worshiped her. She had not removed her glasses, and the beautiful orbs they contained shimmered with unshed tears. A drop landed on her cheek, and it took him a minute to realize it had fallen from his own eye.

"I love you, Amy," he whispered, "just as you are."

Suddenly the curtained fluttered and there was a tickle of cool air, and Sheldon turned sharply toward the window. Was it open? How? Had everyone in the city heard them? But Amy's hand came to his cheek, and she pulled his face back as she soothed, the words punctuated by her approaching climax, "It - is - only - the - wind."

Then the Earth shook as her roar filled the room and he broke apart with her as they shifted and shook and rumbled together, Sheldon's heart cracking and fusing back together even stronger in the same moment, the power of Amy to both break him and heal him at the same time.

* * *

"Who's Daddy's little superhero?" Sheldon cooed, lifting his chubby infant son high above his head as he held him out to pretend to fly. The boy's laughter filled the room as he kicked his legs in glee at one of his favorite activities.

Amy turned from the sink, where she was cleaning up after their meal, with a smile. "You'll give him false ideas about his own strength," she warned but her voice was indulgent.

But then she was always indulgent when it came to their miracle child, the first male Amazonian, conceived and born from pure love. Amy had only lived with him for two weeks, not even fully moved in yet, when she stood in the bathroom doorway one evening, her face white and slack.

"Sheldon?" Amy asked.

"Yes?" he called over his shoulder, putting away the last of the newly washed and folded laundry.

"Is it not the new moon today? Am I wrong?"

He straightened and looked over at her, hugging the door frame, in surprise. "No, you're correct. Check the calendar, but I'm certain. Why? What's wrong?"

Amy took a deep breath. "Because if the calendar and my internal chronometer are not wrong, then I'm pregnant."

"What?" Sheldon whispered, his breath coming short.

"My body has never once strayed from the rhythm of the moon. I've waited all day, but the day is almost over and there cannot be any doubt now."

"Pregnant?" Sheldon sat on the end of the bed with thump. "But - but you said -"

"I don't think it was just the wind," Amy whispered, stepping close to him. "Oh, Sheldon, I'm sorry, I truly never thought -"

"I can't do this." Sheldon stood sharply and walked out of the apartment and down to the street in the dark, his long strides trying but failing to keep pace with his thumping heart.

How? She'd sworn! They'd only been officially together, open and honest with themselves, sharing their relationship with their friends for two weeks! They didn't even live together yet, at least not technically, although Amy spent most nights in 4B with him, and more and more of her belongings were finding their way in the apartment. It was all too soon, too sudden. This isn't what he'd bargained for; he wanted just Amy which meant only Amy, not Amy and a - a baby!

Suddenly there was _woooshhh_ as Wonder Amy landed on the sidewalk in front of him, stopping him short in surprise. She was lit by the streetlamp, her hands on her hips and her green eyes murderous. "Sheldon Cooper," she warned.

Sheldon looked around to see if anyone was watching them. "What are you doing? I don't think someone in your condition should be flying."

"I don't think someone who can't stay and discuss my condition like an adult gets a say in what I should or should not be doing in said condition," she replied, her voice and words terse.

Grunting, Sheldon looked away. "I needed time to think, to clear my head."

"And I don't?"

He looked back. "Are you certain? Shouldn't you take a test? You could be wrong."

Amy shrugged, lowering her arms. "I can, if you insist, but I am certain. And I don't know if your human tests would work." She took a deep breath. "Do not fear, I won't force you to be involved if you don't wish to be. It's my fault we weren't using protection. I will raise this child alone."

"Hey, is that Wonder Amy?" someone called, their voice slurred with alcohol, and Amy grabbed Sheldon by the arm and pulled him into the alley, behind a dumpster, with such great force he thought she would pull his shoulder out of socket.

"Owww!" he said when they'd stopped, and he reached up to rub the aching joint. "Do we have to discuss my child's fate, here, next to a pile of trash?"

"Oh, so it's your child now?" she asked, crossing her arms.

"Of course it's my child!"

Amy put her arms down and shook her head, stepping closer. "I'm sorry. Of course it's your child. Our child. Don't you see it's a miracle, not just for us but for my people?"

Sheldon's head ached, too, at the weight of it all. "Does that mean you'll leave? That you'll go back to Themyscira to raise it?"

"Is that what you want?" she asked softly.

He looked at her, the light from the street catching her glasses, reflecting off her green eyes. Amy. He replayed her words in his mind. If the love is pure and selfless . . . If it endures great tests to prove that . . . A love so untainted and deep that it would occur and endure in all possible universes, that in every version of themselves, the same man and the same woman would find each other . . . He _did_ love her that way. And more. He couldn't imagine a variation of himself without her. He wouldn't change a thing, any of it, in order to spend the rest of this life with her. And what was this baby, then, if not a continuation of that love? If their love was so pure and selfless, which he knew it to be, it could endure this test, too.

"No," he admitted. "I want you to stay here, with me. And the baby."

"It won't be easy," Amy said. "There will be a great deal to decide. I don't even know what this means - for my body, for the child, for my people . . ." Her voice trailed off.

He reached up brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. "If it's easy, it's not worth fighting for. You taught me that."

Amy smiled softly. "I'm frightened, but I know I can do this with you. And, the more I think about it, the happier I am."

"Then that is enough for today."

And, not that day or even the next, but soon, he found this unexpected event only augmented their joy. Yes, they endured endless questions and teasing from his friends, but they were always supportive, even when Sheldon and Amy eloped without warning for a destination wedding they claimed was in Greece. Yes, they fought about whether or not she should immediately stop fighting crime, but he was enamored watching her strong body grow the miracle they'd created. Yes, they fought about traditional medicine versus a midwife, but he was never happier then when he crouched behind her, holding her under her arms as she squatted over the rubber sheet in the doorway of their apartment, gripping the doorjamb so hard she broke the frame, and pushed their son out with a bellow so strong it registered on the Richter scale. Even if he did have to throw away his shoes.

Which brought him back to the present, to their apartment and their son. "You saw how he snapped that rattle in half during his tantrum this morning," Sheldon reminded her.

"Yes," Amy said with heavy sigh, drying her hands.

Sheldon lowered the boy and pulled him close for a kiss on the cheek. He walked toward Amy, resting his hand on her shoulder, and said, "Or it just could have been a poor quality toy. It _was_ a gift from Stuart."

The love of his life nodded with an unconvinced smile. "You're right. But what if -"

She stopped suddenly mid-sentence, and Sheldon knew that meant her Spidey-sense was tingling ("Why do you call it Spidey-sense if you're not Spider-Man?" he had asked months ago). "I'll be back," she said suddenly, rushing to the relatively more open space of the living room, although even that was crowded with the moving boxes. Next week, they would be moving downstairs to the larger and recently vacated apartment 3A.

"Hector," Sheldon leaned down to whispered into his son's ear, "why is there is always a crime right when the dishwasher needs loaded and your diaper needs changed?"

Amy chuckled as she put her arms out wide and spun, and Sheldon squinted as he reached up to cover Hector's delicate eyes from the flash of light. The boy laughed anyway as he always did; Dr. Fowler turning into Wonder Amy was one of his favorite things.

Standing in her breastplate and skirt, Amy turned back over her shoulder to look at them, tousling her hair, her hand on her hip, her breasts swelling behind her armor, her beautiful eyes framed by her glasses.

"Oh, and Sheldon, wait up for Wonder Amy, will you? We have some research to do for Dr. Fowler's study. I'll bring the lasso." She winked, that same action that never stopped enchanting him.

"Research?" Sheldon mouthed, his throat suddenly dry with anticipation.

And, with that promise for her return, Amy, just _his_ Amy, was gone.

THE END

* * *

 ** _*_ Heroes _originally recorded by David Bowie and written by Bowie and Brian Eno._**

 ** _As always, thank you - although those words are not enough - to my wonderful friend and beta for proofreading and idea bouncing with me. You know how I feel._**

 ** _An additional thank you to all my readers, who stayed with this wild and, at times, emotionally draining ride about what it means to be a hero and how real strength sometimes means letting someone else help you be the best you can be. Two heads - and hearts - can be better than one._**

 ** _One last reminder that I'm on Instagram as aprilinparisfanfic sharing Shamy goodies plus general bookish and geeky items that intrigue me. I've shared the wonderful fanart of Wonder Amy by miss. sh . c (no spaces) that was referenced in this story as Sheldon's screensaver. Enjoy!_**


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